Job creation and destruction in South Africa

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dc.creatorKerr, Andrew
dc.creatorWittenberg, Martin
dc.creatorArrow, Jairo
dc.date2013-08-01T13:10:53Z
dc.date2013-08-01T13:10:53Z
dc.date2013-01
dc.date.accessioned2015-05-28T10:06:21Z
dc.date.available2015-05-28T10:06:21Z
dc.date.issued2015-05-28
dc.descriptionAnalysts of the South African labour market have predominantly used household surveys to analyse the labour market. It has been more di fficult to explore labour demand from the firm side, as a result of limited data from relatively small cross sectional firm surveys, mainly funded by the World Bank. We use the Quarterly Employment Survey conducted by Statistics South Africa that allows us to explore how South African enterprises create and destroy jobs, shedding light on many of the policy questions that are relevant in a high unemployment society like South Africa. We find job creation and destruction rates are similar to those found in OECD countries. There is little evidence that labour legislation creates rigidities that prevent firms from hiring or fi ring workers. We also find that larger firms are better net creators of jobs than small firms and that net job creation rates are negative in manufacturing, consistent with work using household surveys. Our research has important policy implications - particularly for the National Planning Commission's suggestion that new jobs will come mainly from small and medium sized fi rms. Our research suggests this is not likely without changes to policy or legislation. This is a joint SALDRU/DataFirst Working Paper
dc.descriptionWe thank Naume Malepe and Mandla Masemula of Statistics South Africa for their help in explaining the QES data and sampling procedures. We are grateful for helpful comments from participants at the SALDRU seminar, University of Cape Town, the Firms and Labour Markets conference, University of Oxford and the Micro-econometric analysis of South African data conference, Durban. This research was made possible by an exploratory grant awarded by the Private Enterprise Development in Low-Income Countries (PEDL) research initiative. PEDL is a joint research initiative of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) and the UK Department For International Development (DFID). It aims to develop a research programme focusing on private-sector development in low-income countries.
dc.identifier978-1-920517-33-5
dc.identifierhttp://hdl.handle.net/11090/608
dc.identifier.ris TY - Working Paper DA - 2015-05-28 DB - OpenUCT DP - University of Cape Town KW - Labour market KW - Labour demand KW - Quarterly Employment Survey KW - Job creation KW - Job destruction KW - Firms KW - Labour market legislation LK - https://open.uct.ac.za PB - University of Cape Town PY - 2015 T1 - Job creation and destruction in South Africa TI - Job creation and destruction in South Africa UR - http://hdl.handle.net/11090/608 ER - en_ZA
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11090/608
dc.languageen
dc.publisher.departmentSALDRUen_ZA
dc.publisher.facultyFaculty of Commerceen_ZA
dc.publisher.institutionUniversity of Cape Town
dc.relationWorking Paper;92
dc.subjectLabour market
dc.subjectLabour demand
dc.subjectQuarterly Employment Survey
dc.subjectJob creation
dc.subjectJob destruction
dc.subjectFirms
dc.subjectLabour market legislation
dc.titleJob creation and destruction in South Africa
dc.typeWorking Paper
uct.type.publicationResearchen_ZA
uct.type.resourceWorking Paperen_ZA
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