South Africa’s finance minister tabled a Budget on 21 May with the support of the Government of National Unity partners. VAT will remain at 15 per cent and Cabinet is agreed that reviews of expenditure should be intensified. The revised budget protects frontline services though several provisional spending proposals have been withdrawn. But the problems of sluggish growth and high debt levels remain. Substantial spending cuts will be needed if the Treasury’s fiscal consolidation goals are to be achieved. More rapid growth will require far-reaching structural and fiscal reforms.
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Pippa Green
Latest Articles
Nyemwererai Matshaka, Mphatso Elias Ackim
Hannah MacGinty, Emma Whitelaw
Latest Articles
Clare Hofmeyr
Increasing levels of youth unemployment and learners’ poor performance at school have led to claims that the matric certificate no longer has much value in the labour market. However, the evidence does not support this claim. While the labour market conditions facing secondary school graduates have indeed worsened with time, the value of a matric certificate relative to that of grade 10 and 11 has remained positive both in terms of earnings and the likelihood of finding employment.
Hannah MacGinty
How has graduate unemployment evolved since 2008? We situate trends in graduate unemployment in the contexts of improved graduation rates, the shifting composition of graduates, the broader labour market, and public expenditure on higher education.
Andrew Charman
Using a small-area census approach, this article reports on changes in informal micro-enterprise activity in the Cape township of Delft between 2010 and 2015. The number of micro-enterprises has doubled (from 879 to 1798) in five years, with growth recorded in almost all sectors (notably take-away food and street trade). The increase in the total is contrary to the official national trend. The prevalence of informal enterprises in residential areas, compared to those in the high street, has not changed.
Andrew Kerr
Firm-level data for the period 2005 to 2011 indicate that job creation and destruction rates in South Africa are only slightly lower than among OECD countries. Around 10% of existing jobs are destroyed each year, while the number of new jobs is around 9.5% of existing employment. Larger firms have higher rates of net job creation than small firms. The relatively high reallocation of employment across firms suggests lower rigidities in the South African labour market than is sometimes believed.
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Editor's Corner
François Steenkamp, Haroon Bhorat
Climatic stabilisation, as mandated by the Paris Agreement, necessitates a transition away from fossil-fuel based economic production and processes. In particular, the call to shift away from coal is crucial, given South Africa's substantial reliance on this energy source. The nation stands out as a larger CO2 emitter than the global average, with 86% of its primary energy supply and 85% of its CO2 emissions attributed to coal.[1]South Africa finds itself at the early stages of transitioning away from coal, but this is not devoid of socio-economic costs, as coal has a direct and indirect economic footprint.[2] Coal is a relatively cheap energy source, accounting for USD 3.8 billion and 3.97% of total merchandise exports, and is a source of employment and livelihood for many South Africans. Despite these socio-economic costs, delaying the transition could also prove costly, especially in light of evolving trade protocols that increasingly demand environmentally friendly alternatives such as electric vehicles or green steel.
In this article, extracted from a longer paper,[3] we provide a robust quantitative estimate of jobs – both direct and indirect – associated with the coal sector in South Africa. We also explore the labour market profile and characteristics of the individuals and households linked to the coal sector. In particular, we are interested in the size and shape of the coal labour market. Understanding the labour market implications associated with a transition is pivotal in shaping policy decisions linked to the just transition.