Sour grapes

Abstract

Employment creation is a national priority, and it is often said that agriculture is a sector in which jobs should be created. This has not happened. A study of employment in the Hex River Valley confirms this. Although the area under cultivation expanded by half, the number of jobs had fallen by 30 percent over a thirty-year period. How, then, are the job statistics reconciled with burgeoning informal settlements? The most plausible explanation seemed to be a growth of indirect employment.

The primary aim of this study was to investigate whether there had indeed been a growth of indirect employment, and to what extent this was attributable to the labour law regime, as well as its consequences for that regime. A second aim is to interrogate the argument that labour legislation has introduced “rigidities” in the labour market and trade unions (through collective bargaining) have pushed up minimum wages to unrealistic levels.