How has graduate unemployment evolved since 2008? We situate trends in graduate unemployment in the contexts of improved graduation rates, the shifting composition of graduates, the broader labour market, and public expenditure on higher education.
A forum for economic policy debate
Econ3x3 promotes analysis and debate on unemployment and employment, income distribution and inclusive growth in South Africa. It publishes accessible research- and expertise-based articles and provides a forum for engagement between research and policy making. We invite contributions from economists and other social science researchers, policy advisors and independent experts.
Hannah McGinty, Emma Whitelaw
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Pippa Green
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Wandile Sihlobo
South Africa has an export-led agricultural sector, with exports having been a major catalyst in the sector’s growth over the past three decades. But rising geopolitical tensions have introduced new risks, leading to an increased need for the country to diversify its export agricultural markets. In this article, we argue that South Africa should expand market access to some key BRICS countries, such as China, India, Egypt, and Saudia Arabia. Other strategic export markets for South Africa's agricultural sector include South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Taiwan, Mexico, the Philippines, and Bangladesh. Currently, the significant challenges in these markets are high import tariffs and phytosanitary barriers.
François Steenkamp, Haroon Bhorat
How will the Just Energy Transition affect livelihoods in households dependent on the coal industry in South Africa? Here is a measure of how many jobs depend on the industry and possible transition strategies.
Zak Essa, Kate Philip
Public Employment Programmes can play a key role not only in alleviating the crisis of widespread unemployment. They can also be harnessed to help to combat a range of social and environmental challenges, including the effects of climate change.
Haroon Bhorat, Tim Köhler
Expanded access to electricity has been a boon to development in many low- and middle-income countries, including South Africa, but erratic supply has proved a major constraint to economic growth. Now, in the first study on the effects of load-shedding on employment, the authors find that prolonged and regular power outages are significantly and negatively associated with job retention, working hours, and earnings.
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Editor's Corner
Andrew Donaldson
In this opinion piece on South Africa’s unemployment crisis, Andrew Donaldson argues that while structural reforms are needed to raise growth and broaden development over the longer term, an employment-oriented economic strategy is the central challenge in present times.
Viewed through an elementary growth accounting lens, South Africa’s frontiers of labour-intensive production should be steadily moving out, bringing unemployed human resources into economically useful occupations. We have abundant physical and mental human capabilities searching for work.
However imperfect the adjustment (“tâtonnement”) process, economic theory implies that there should be progress towards full employment, and higher output should flow from the mobilisation of otherwise unutilised capacity. And if markets don’t generate this result, it is a policy coordination function.
It is not that constructive applications are hard to identify. Houses need to be built, roads repaired, food markets expanded, clothing and furniture supplied, safety and security improved, water sources protected, children cared for.
It is not that we lack the know-how or technological capabilities required: these are activities in which knowledge is readily available and there is clear evidence of under-utilised productive capacity. To put unskilled labour to work, we do not need to overcome technological barriers in artificial intelligence, biosciences or big data processing.
It is not that higher production to meet domestic consumption needs might have unsustainable fiscal or balance of payments effects: in horticulture, timber and related products, light manufacturing, and a wide swathe of commercial and hospitality services there are growth opportunities in tradeable goods and tax revenue will flow from expanded activity.
Of course, there are complementarities in the resource combinations required to expand economic activity: engineering skills accompany artisanal capabilities and physical effort on building sites and floor managers oversee the organisation of work in restaurant kitchens and clothing assembly lines.
But the best available theories of skills development suggest that it is the application of learning by “doing” that is the proximate driver of productivity and skills acquisition.