The Dynamics of Job Creation and Job Destruction: Is Sub-Saharan Africa Different?
Admasu Shiferaw () and
Arjun Bedi
No 4623, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
Abstract:
This paper analyzes the creation, destruction and reallocation of jobs in order to understand the micro-dynamics of aggregate employment change in African manufacturing. The nature and magnitude of gross job flows are examined using a unique panel data of Ethiopian manufacturing establishments over the period 1996-2007. We also assess the relative importance of firm demographics, industry effects and business cycles for job flows. The rates and patterns of job creation and destruction in our sample are comparable to the findings from developed and emerging economies suggesting that African firms adjust their labor force in a manner broadly similar to firms elsewhere and that African labor markets are not uniquely restrictive in terms of undermining job reallocation across firms. We also find, as in many other countries, that job reallocation is relatively higher in industries dominated by smaller and younger establishments. However, unlike other regions, job reallocation in our sample is pro-cyclical and its variation across industries bears little similarity to the patterns found in other developed and emerging economies. Small firms in Africa create jobs mainly at the point of market-entry and play a limited role in terms of contributing to manufacturing employment through post-entry expansion.
Keywords: job reallocation; job destruction; job creation; firm dynamics; Sub-Saharan Africa; Ethiopia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J20 J23 J49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2009-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr and nep-lab
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)
Published - published as 'The Dynamics of Job Creation and Job Destruction in an African Economy: Evidence from Ethiopia' in: Journal of African Economies, 2013, 22(5), 651-692
Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp4623.pdf (application/pdf)
Related works:
Working Paper: The Dynamics of Job Creation and Job Destruction: Is Sub-Saharan Africa Different? (2010) 
Working Paper: The Dynamics of Job Creation and Job Destruction: Is Sub-Saharan Africa Different? (2010) 
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:iza:izadps:dp4623
Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().