The Post-Apartheid Challenge: Labour Demand Trends in the South African Labour Market, 1995-1999

Haroon Bhorat

Working Papers from University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit

Abstract: The paper attempts to provide a descriptive overview of absolute and relative shifts in labour demand in the South African economy over the post-apartheid period, 1995-1999. The paper debunks the myth that the domestic economy is characterised by ‘jobless growth’ in this period. However, it does reveal that the rate of job creation has been far below the growth of the labour force, yielding a relatively poor employment performance for the South African economy. In particular, the analysis shows that the economy is a poor creator of low-end jobs. The second segment of the paper attempts to ascribe, using an established labour demand decomposition methodology, reasons for these labour demand shifts. It is clear that the adoption of new technologies, relative to structural changes in the economy, have remained the dominant determinant of the economys employment trajectory. One key exogenous factor though, has impacted on employment changes in this period namely the process of intensive process of public sector restructuring.

Keywords: South Africa: Labour Demand Trends; post-apartheid; ‘jobless growth’; public sector restructuring (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24 pages
Date: 2003-08
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Published in Working Paper Series by the Development Policy Research Unit, August 2003, pages 1-24

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/11427/7382 First version, 2003 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ctw:wpaper:03082

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Waseema Petersen ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).