The unemployed and the formal and informal sectors in South Africa: A macroeconomic analysis

South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences

 
 
Field Value
 
Title The unemployed and the formal and informal sectors in South Africa: A macroeconomic analysis
 
Creator Burger, Philippe Fourie, Frederick
 
Subject macroeconomics; labour economics formal sector employment; informal sector employment; unemployment
Description Background: At 27.2% in the second quarter of 2018 the official unemployment rate in South Africa ranks as one of the highest in the world. However, depending on whether one uses the official or broad definition of unemployed, since 2008 there are on average between 2 and 3.3 times as many unemployed people as there are people in the informal sector.Aim: This article seeks to explore empirically, using time-series data, the extent to which an increase in the number of unemployed leads to increased entry of workers into the informal sector.Method: We use a Markov-switching vector error correction model.Results: We find that such entrance is very limited, lending credence to the notion that significant entry barriers exist into the informal sector.Conclusion: From a policy point of view these results suggest the need to consider measures that will ease entrance into the informal sector.
 
Publisher AOSIS Publishing
 
Contributor
Date 2019-02-25
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — Time-series econometric modelling
Format text/html application/epub+zip application/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/sajems.v22i1.2104
 
Source South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences; Vol 22, No 1 (2019); 12 pages 2222-3436 1015-8812
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://sajems.org/index.php/sajems/article/view/2104/1722 https://sajems.org/index.php/sajems/article/view/2104/1721 https://sajems.org/index.php/sajems/article/view/2104/1723 https://sajems.org/index.php/sajems/article/view/2104/1719
 
Coverage South Africa 2008-2016 E24, 26, J2, 3
Rights Copyright (c) 2019 Philippe Burger, Frederick Fourie https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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