The South African labour market, 1995–2015

This study investigates the changes in the South African labour market in the post-apartheid period. While unemployment increased over the 1995–2015 period, employment also increased. Nonetheless, the extent of employment increase is not rapid enough to absorb all net entrants into the labour force, resulting in increasing unemployment, or an employment absorption rate of 65.3%. Unemployment is concentrated in specific demographically and geographically defined groups, most notably Africans, the lowly educated and those aged below 30 years, residing in rural areas in Gauteng. Finally, four worrying findings are observed: youth jobseekers aged below 30 years struggle to find their first job; chronic unemployment is more serious for the relatively older jobseekers (aged 45 years or above) with past work experience; employees working for small, medium and micro enterprises still stagnate at approximately 3.5 million; and jobseekers from the older age cohorts are less likely to actively seek work by enquiring at workplaces and answering job advertisements.     

Does tourism cause growth asymmetrically in a panel of G-7 countries? A short note

We analyse whether tourism (measured by real tourism receipts) causes growth in an asymmetric fashion in a panel of G-7 countries over the period of 1995–2014. Our results reveal that the tourism-led growth hypothesis holds for France, Germany, and the US, with negative tourism shocks being more important for Germany, Italy, Japan, while positive shocks are more important in UK and the US. Our results imply that, policy makers in Germany, Italy and Japan should be more concerned when tourism receipts decline.     

Examining the Performance of the South African Economics Departments, 2005‐2014

This study examines the teaching and research activities of 17 Economics Departments in 2005‐2014 by consulting the information from each university's faculty prospectus, publication in accredited local and international peer‐reviewed journals, Economic Society of South Africa conference participation, Economic Research Southern Africa working paper series and the National Research Foundation. The results indicate there is big variation in the departments’ teaching and research activities during the period. Nonetheless, research output increased, in particular publication in accredited international journals in both absolute and proportional terms.