I. Introduction
South Africa suffers from persistently high unemployment and low labor force participation, leading to a depressed absorption rate of below
45 percent—almost the lowest among large emerging market economies.
The 2008–09 recession made the situation much worse, with some 1 million jobs eliminated and a sizable group of discouraged workers leaving the labor force, further reducing the absorption rate to 40½ percent in 2009
(Figure 1). Recognizing the gravity of the situation, the authorities made job creation the top priority in the 2010 and 2011 budgets. The New Growth
Brazil
Chile
China
Colombia
India
Indonesia
Israel
Korea
Malaysia
Mexico
Peru
Philippines
Poland
Russia
Thailand
Ukraine
70
70
90
90
2009
Argentina
Hungary
South Africa
Turkey
30
30
50
50
2000
Figure 1. Employment (Percent of working age population)WHAT DO FAST JOB CREATORS LOOK LIKE? WHAT DO FAST JOB CREATORS LOOK LIKE?
SOME STYLIZED FACTS AND PERSPECTIVES ON SOUTH AFRICA SOME STYLIZED FACTS AND PERSPECTIVES ON SOUTH AFRICA
2
Path (NGP) set an ambitious target of creating 5 million more jobs in the next decade, so as to reduce the unemployment rate by 10 percentage points.
Against this backdrop, this Departmental Paper examines the job creation performance in a group of large emerging market economies, including South
Africa, and highlights some common economic characteristics that are likely associated with fast job creation.
This Departmental Paper is structured as follows. The next section highlights some factors identifi ed by the existing literature that are related to job creation.
Section III ranks countries based on their performances in job creation during the last decades. Section IV presents comparative statistics between fast and slow job creators. Section V explores which factors are more likely to