This paper looks to uncover the growth traps and opportunities for the South African
economy, with a focus on underlying labour market dynamics. We explore the potential of South
Africa’s demographic dividend. We also consider the structure of the labour market and the
growth-employment interactions, which uncover the skills-biased labour demand path of the
economy and a rising trend in the use of labour brokers to source temporary workers. Finally, we
show a new labour market trend has emerged: a rise in the share of public sector employment
along with higher conditional returns to public sector workers than to those in the private sector.