Bell, Trevor : Unemployment in South Africa

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Simkins. His work is noteworthy partly because of its thoroughness and technical sophistication, but also because it has been the chief focus of criticism in the unemployment debate. He has published several sets of estimates of the unemployment rate in South Africa, and the most recent of these, revised in the light of new evidence1', are presented in Table 2. The table and figure indicate that after rising in the early sixties the unemployment rate fell to its lowest level in 1967. Thereafter the unemployment rate rose sharply in 1968. However, it declined somewhat thereafter, and though rising to 18.9 per cent in 1972, was reduced by the gold boom of 1973-75 to a level of only 16.2 per cent, that is only just slightly higher than in 1967. It is, therefore, not clear that a secular upward trend in the unemployment rate can be said to have set in by that stage. However, the boom of 1973-75 was due to an unprecedented shock originating abroad (the oil crisis, through its effect on the price of gold), which may well have merely temporarily prevented the manifestation of an underlying longer-term tendency for unemployment rates to rise. For, at the end of this phase of strong cyclical expansion the overall unemployment rate rises strongly to 21.1 per cent in 1979, remains at about that level till 1981, but thereafter rises again in 1982 to a level higher than any previously reached. This resumption of the rising trend doubtless continues at least some way into 1983, as the current recession deepens. Whether we see it as cyclical or secular therefore, we find that the overall unemployment rate according to the general method used by Simkins (1982 : 6). taking into account the recent adjustments referred to above, has increased from 16.2 per cent in 1975 to about 22 per cent in 1982, and probably to a yet higher level in 1983. 1) These revised results are unpublished and have been kindly provided to me in correspondence and in conversation. I am most grateful to Charles Simkins for this, but he naturally bears no responsibility for any errors which may be made here in adjusting his last published estimates or in interpreting the evidence.
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Page 2 and 3: INSllIUTt TOR SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC R
Page 4 and 5: i CONTENTS Page - u.t of Tabla0 and
Page 6 and 7: Preface This paper is an extension
Page 8 and 9: Applications by whltea for Employme
Page 12 and 13: There is not, to my knowledge, anot
Page 14 and 15: The evidence thus suggests a persis
Page 16 and 17: ~i~~~~ 1: UNEMPLOYMENT PATES: UNITE
Page 18 and 19: Table 5: Unemployment Rates in Scnn
Page 20 and 21: Thue in a number of other countries
Page 22: Table 6 Registered Unemployment Rat
Page 25 and 26: Table 7 Non-Agricultural Employment
Page 28 and 29: In the case of Blacks, employment g
Page 30 and 31: governwant intervention in foreign
Page 32 and 33: Real Intwraat Rats and Rats of Incr
Page 34 and 35: Table 9 Real Interest Rates and Ave
Page 36 and 37: grawth in general rather than to an
Page 38 and 39: hetbr th. unemployment in voluntary
Page 40 and 41: it is argued that for a small open
Page 42 and 43: imzlO.ion of this form of voluntary
Page 44 and 45: significance1). However, the findin
Page 46 and 47: Thus where the unemployment rate sh
Page 48 and 49: have expected a substantial increas
Page 50 and 51: vii) Finally, amongst the causes of
Page 52 and 53: traditionally been considerably hig
Page 54 and 55: already become much more difficult
Page 56 and 57: unemployment is deregulated markets
Page 58 and 59: 'thirties and even the postvar peri
Page 60:
might, JB (1982) "The Nature of Une
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Bell, Trevor : Unemployment in South Africa

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