South Africa’s economic development trajectory: implications for skills development strategy.
Altman and Mayer argue that skills development in South Africa must be aligned to the economic and political imperatives of reducing unemployment and poverty, while fostering growth and international competitiveness. The legacy of a resource-based economy, overlaid by apartheid policies, has resulted in widespread poverty, inequality and unemployment existing alongside globally competitive industries. It is…
read more >>Overview of the Economy and Economic Policy
Lowitt and Altman provide a high-level review of the economy’s performance and key policy development in the period 2001–2003. The focus is on economic performance and policy in relation to the demand for labour, and hence human resource development. From a performance perspective, the chapter shows that economic growth was resilient despite a global slowdown and…
read more >>An overview of Industrial Policy and its Implications for HRD
Altman and Mayer analyse the impact of South Africa’s industrial policy on the demand for labour. They show that industrial development has historically been driven by minerals extraction and import substitution, overlain by apartheid policies that excluded the majority of the population from the economy. This entrenched a growth path characterised by capital-intensive production processes,…
read more >>Employment Promotion in a Minerals Economy
The SA economy can be characterized as a minerals economy, with a small market and low skill levels. Hence, most foreign investment is attracted to resource extraction, basic beneficiation or government-generated opportunities. There are many indications that SA suffers from the ‘resource curse’. The dominance of basic minerals and metals in SA’s export profile contributes…
read more >>Halving Unemployment by 2014:What will it take?
Government committed to halving unemployment between 2004 and 2014. Altman considers the following questions: how fast might the labour market grow, and what rate of job creation will be needed to achieve this target? Has the South Africa economy yet embarked on a sufficiently labour-absorbing path? Is Government policy moving in the right direction?
read more >>The State of Employment and Unemployment
Altman outlines trends in employment, underemployment and unemployment in South Africa, and explains possible causes and policy implications. Net employment in South Africa was stagnant or falling since the early 1980s, mainly because of factors related to the Apartheid government’s policies of ‘Separate Development’. A large stock of unemployed built up over many years, and…
read more >>The State of Employment
Altman considers the meaning of job creating versus jobless growth, and assesses the character of employment creation in South Africa. She reviews the extent of job creation in the economy and compares this with the pace of labour force and economic growth. She then assesses the quality of these jobs and their contribution to household…
read more >>Quantifying the Outsourcing of Jobs from Manufacturing to Services
There has been debate internationally and in South Africa about the extent to which a relative decline in manufacturing employment and rise in services employment can be accounted for by intersectoral outsourcing of jobs in the domestic economy. This article develops a new methodology for testing for and quantifying outsourcing at an economy-wide level. This…
read more >>The Economy-Wide Effects of Price Reducing Reforms In Infrastructure Services In South Africa
Prices of infrastructure services in South Africa may be higher than in other countries because of imperfect competition, non-tariff barriers to trade, or inefficiencies in production. A static computerised general equilibrium (CGE) model is used to analyse the economy-wide effects of reducing telecommunications and transport prices by reforming each of these three factors. This modelling…
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