Minimum wages have been in place for South Africa’s one million domestic service workers since November of 2002. Using data from seven waves of the Labour Force Survey, this paper documents that the real hourly wages, average monthly earnings, and total earnings of all employed domestic...

The study involves a statistical analysis of the case management system (CMS) database of the Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) for the financial years 2001/2, 2003/4 and 2004/5. It focuses on statistical indicators that shed light on the administrative efficiency of...

Abstract: The World Bank’s Doing Business survey seeks to measure and compare the costs to business of various types of regulation, including labour regulation. As such it is an important driver of labour market ‘reform’ globally and in South Africa. It may also be encouraging a tendency...

The petrochemicals industry in South Africa has grown significantly over the past two decades, largely as a result of the expansion and diversification of the premier petrochemical producer - Sasol. This working paper examines the role that producer services have played in this growth. It finds...

This country study evaluates the experience of the South African economy with respect to growth, poverty and inequality trends since the advent of democracy in 1994. The post-apartheid government took a definite turn toward greater spending on social security, while job creation and a narrowing...

Even though the South African economy is formally categorised as an upper-middle income country, it has one of the highest unemployment rates in the world. The economy’s unemployment rate stands officially at 26.7 per cent and 38.8 per cent. This characteristic, more than any other, has placed...

Drawing on a comparative overview of the earnings function work on South Africa, this article presents an alternative and comprehensive model of earnings in the South African labour market. Gauteng, South Africa's economic powerhouse, has long been dependent on immigration to supply its labour...

The paper considers the complex process of introducing a regime of shorter working hours in the private security sector in South Africa. While the process of reducing the working hours of security workers in 1999 was bold, there is potential for real gains and losses to be derived from the...

During 2006 and 2007, a selection of research papers, in the main written by labour law experts, have provided critical input and guidance on the nature of the debate around the efficiency of the labour regulatory environment in South Africa. In November 2007, key stakeholders from government,...

This paper sets out to investigate relative wages and wage dispersion for formal sector workers in the private and public sectors. The paper explicitly measures the size of the public sector wage premium and offers some reasons for its existence. It also attempts to document the changing pattern...