This paper investigates the changes in the South African labour market
in the post-apartheid period in 1995-2013 by updating the work by Oosthuizen
(2006) and Yu (2008). The three main data sources used are the
October Household Survey of 1995, the Labour Force Survey of September
2004 and the Quarterly Labour Force Survey of 2013 Quarter 4. It was
found that while unemployment has risen over the period, employment has
also increased. Nonetheless, the extent of employment increase was not
rapid enough to absorb all net entrants in to the labour force, resulting in
increasing unemployment, or an employment absorption rate of below 100
per cent. Unemployment continues to be concentrated in specific demographically
and geographically defined groups, most notably blacks, the
poorly educated and the youngsters residing in Gauteng. Unemployment
is a chronic problem for the youth in particular, as nearly three quarters
of them never worked before. Finally, the employment absorption
rate was the highest in some less developed provinces like Northern Cape,
Mpumalanga and Limpopo, thereby suggesting the possible success of the
government’s efforts to promote the development in the poorer provinces.