This paper conducts a review of the literature on skills shortages in South Africa. It is demonstrated that different Government departments have different views concerning the definition of skills shortages. This is largely due to the omission in any official government literature of tying the...

This paper examines the potential trade-off between growth in employment and growth in wages. In order to assess the trade-off between employment growth and real wage growth, we make use of a simple decomposition model, following Mazumdar (2000), in which real wage growth is determined by growth...

The aim of this study is to provide an analysis of the shifts in non-income welfare that have occurred over the period 1993 to 2004. This analysis serves as a complement to existing research which has focused on shifts in income poverty and inequality in the post-apartheid period. In addition,...

Simulations suggest that under the most optimistic conditions, halving the official rate of unemployment would require 3.7 million jobs to be created between 2004 and 2014. Halving the number of expanded unemployed under pessimistic assumptions about the growth rate of the economically active...

Maputo Development Corridor (MDC), what actors and stakeholders are involved in the policy- and decision-making processes, and draws some lessons for future development corridors and spatial development initiatives (SDIs) in the broader Southern African region. The analysis reveals that the...

The research examines the different forms of regulation of conditions of employment (i.e. bargaining council agreements, the Basic Conditions of Employment Act (BCEA), and sectoral determinations) and what sort of accommodation they make for small firms. Three key areas are examined - the...

The current misalignment of labour supply and demand in South Africa constitutes one of the factors that hold back the countrys economic growth. Consequently, efforts have recently been made to estimate future labour demand so that current policies are designed in such a way as to attempt to...

The paper analyses poverty and inequality changes in South Africa for the period 1996 to 2001 using Census data. To gain a broader picture of well-being in South Africa, both income-based and access-based measurement approaches are employed. At the national level, findings from the income-based...

In this paper we investigate labour market trends in South Africa between October 1995 and March 2003. In particular, we evaluate the South African governments claim that over this period, the economy created two million net new jobs. Using the same household survey data as that used to generate...

The mining industry has been at the heart of South Africa's economy for over 100 years. This working paper explores an aspect of the mining industry that has received little attention - the producer services used in production. It finds that producer services are a key part of the mining...