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Part 2: Recovery policies and labour utilization

16 July 2021
JEL Code: F66, H12, H52, I20, I24, I25, I28, J60, J64, J68

The discussion is based on two research papers: Recovering from COVID-19: Economic scenarios for South Africa by Dirk van Seventer, Channing Arndt, Robert J. Davies, Sherwin Gabriel, Laurence Harris, and Sherman Robinson and Addressing low labour utilisation in South Africa, by Christopher Loewald, Konstantin Makrelov and Andreas Wörgötter (see below) that explores the main challenges facing the South African labour market. Increasing labour utilisation requires a novel approach to sustainable employment creation, which moves away from policies that serve certain groups at the expense of the unemployed.

  • How is the Covid-19 recovery affected by the low labour utilisation and high unemployment rates in SA?
  • Is the low economic growth here to stay?
  • Is the labour market acting as the primary constraint to economic growth?
  • What are the reasons behind the low labour utilisation rate in South Africa and how is this different to other emerging countries?
  • Which parts of society are bearing the brunt of the this?
  • Can we achieve sustainable wage growth?

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