Abstract: The major cause of poverty is unemployment. This paper looks at aspects of the way government responds to claims that are made, chiefly by academics, about poverty and unemployment. Official statistics on poverty and unemployment enjoy little favour among senior politicians and civil...

Policy makers are well aware that creating jobs is an important priority if the health of our economy is to be preserved and improved. However, the first step towards a successful strategy of employment creation is an understanding of the labour market. Much attention has been devoted to...

For a large proportion of the South African population social welfare grants are an important source of income. Rapid increases in government expenditure on social security between 2000 and 2006 has further increased poor households’ reliance on welfare grants and has been important in the fi...

We develop a model where blacks in the private sector earn no returns to education if there are relatively too few educated blacks. Using a sample of black females in the late apartheid KwaZulu to control for labour market specific effects, we find that more than a fifth of labour market...

This paper focuses on the clothing and textile industry in the SADC region, with specific reference to the locational characteristics and developments of these two industry sectors over the last decade. The study links the economic and spatial characteristics of the clothing and textile...

This paper will seek to analyse the performance of the public sector in implementing affirmative action policies intended to promote employment equity. This will be done primarily by examining the pattern of changes in public sector employment over the past five years. Wherever possible, public...

Whilst much has been said about the employment effects of the privatisation of state-owned enterprises in South Africa, the debate has largely overlooked the impact of these events on the wage levels of those workers that retain their jobs in the restructuring process. This paper estimates...

The idea of a ‘second economy’ has become a feature of recent government economic policy. In this paper we focus on one important element of the second economy – the informal economy. We analyse the nature of the informal economy in South Africa, providing some descriptive statistics and...

Launched in 1995, Spatial Development Initiatives (SDIs) are currently the main vehicle used by the South African government to promote regional development. SDI project(s) purport to be short-term and targeted attempts to stimulate "growth" by creating globally competitive spatial entities, new...

This paper attempts to redress the lack of research into temporary labour migration at a national level in South Africa. Using the 1993 Project for Statistics on Living Standards and Development and the 1995, 1997 and 1999 October Household Surveys, we explore three broad areas: the extent of...