| dc.description.abstract | The South African economy is faced with a crisis of persistently high and rising unemployment
rates. Although this is a cause for serious concern, the statistic captures a segment of the
working-age population enduring recurrent spells of unemployment – a vulnerable group for
consideration that these figures fail to uncover. The dilemma could be linked to the influx of
previously disadvantaged groups (i.e. Africans and females) into the labour market since the
dawn of democracy. Thus, the newly appointed South African government inherits an economy
that had systematically disadvantaged most of the population, leading to an oversupply of
labour, where highly-skilled labour appears to be more appealing in comparison to the
relatively low-skilled labour offered by these persons.
Historically suppressed groups thus disproportionately bear the brunt of this unemployment,
where some may have involuntarily remained rooted in unemployment for longer periods of
time than those considered unemployed on a temporal basis. The importance of exploring and
understanding the roles of some underlying forces is extremely crucial to wrestle this pressing
issue in a South African context, when examining labour market dynamics.
This study therefore explores the nature and extent of chronic unemployment by examining the
data of the first four available waves (2008, 2010/2011, 2012 and 2014/2015) of the National
Income Dynamics Study (NIDS). The empirical findings reveal that those significantly more
susceptible to chronic unemployment are: African individuals with either incomplete
secondary education or at most a Matric qualification in tandem with an additional
certificate/diploma, residing in traditional areas in less wealthy provinces (i.e. Free State and
Mpumalanga). Furthermore, the results demonstrate that these chronically unemployed
individuals are more likely to form part of the youth (25-44 years), be non-poor, with their
household composition consisting of one to five household members where the minority enjoy
wage employment whereas the majority endure spells of unemployment. Ultimately, they
devote themselves to informal employment and occupations requiring semi-skilled and
relatively unskilled labour in the community, social and personal services industry and on
average earn R 3 342 per month in 2016 December prices. | en_US |
