The Future of Work: Views from South Africa

Description

Faculty from the University of Texas and the University of Cape Town are beginning a collaboration on the drivers of the past, present, and future of work in South Africa. In this panel, leading South African economists set the stage for this project to generate much-needed responses to the many economic, legal, and political crises exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Key moments

0:00 Introduction
0:50 Panel begins
11:38 – 13:08 Imraan Valodia presents five major areas of concern in relation to South Africa’s labor market: the informal economy, turbulence in the labor market, the gendered nature of work, increasing capital intensity, and skyrocketing inequality.
20:14 – 21:49 Busi Sibeko describes some of the realities experienced by workers in South Africa, including poverty wages and underemployment.
27:39 – 29:12 Haroon Bhorat explains how automation disproportionately threatens workers in routine, mid-skill occupations, whereas knowledge workers and service workers often have access to higher wages and enhanced job security.
38:01 – 39:13 Neva Makgetla describes inequality in South Africa as a long-term project, persisting through the transition from apartheid to democracy in 1994.
59:08 – 1:02:52 Haroon Bhorat outlines four key points that have led to an increase in wealth inequality in South Africa, highlighting the importance of low national economic growth rates to this reality.
1:04:25 – 1:05:08 Neva Makgetla describes how the South African state is systematically designed to exclude the voices of the socioeconomically marginalized, preventing them from organizing.

Imraan Valodia,

AI and Technology,

Automation & Technological Change,

Growth & Degrowth,

Infrastructure,

Labor Organizing,

Social Reproduction,

Work Across the Global South

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