Labour Markets in SubSaharan Africa: Cape Town Workshop 2015
Labour Markets in SubSaharan Africa
2015 NJD SSA Regional Event/Workshop
WHEN: 26 & 27 November 2015
WHERE: Cape Town, South Africa
The DPRU hosted the event as a regional partner of the World Bank’s Network on Jobs and Development (NJD) programme. The objective of the NJD is to contribute to the creation of multi-sector, multi-disciplinary solutions to the jobs challenges around the world, based on regionally-led research and empirical evidence. The specific themes being explored by the NJD partnership in 2015 include Urbanisation, Informality, and Labour Regulation. Accordingly, the workshop focused on these three interrelated topics, but in the particular context of labour markets in SubSaharan Africa (SSA).
Topics included: demographic shifts taking place in SSA and how these impact on labour markets; the informal economy and how it links to urbanisation in the region; different forms of labour regulation in SSA and how these influence informality and firm behaviour; and finally, a set of country-level case studies that examine current trends and emerging growth and employment challenges in SSA labour markets.
Keynote Speakers included: Shanta Devarajan (Chief Economist – Middle East and North Africa, World Bank) and Kathleen Beegle (Lead Economist, Africa Region, World Bank).
To view the programme, click here.
The presentations were as follows:
- Kathleen Beegle: “What do we know about labor markets in Africa: Some of the Gaps”
- Ahmadou Aly Mbaye: “Labor Market Regulations in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a Focus on Senegal”
- Lucas Ronconi: “Enforcement and the Effective Regulation of Labor”
- Jaivir Singh: “Who is a Worker? Seeking Answers from Economics and the Law”
- Nancy Benjamin: “Jobs and The relations of formal and Informal firms: case study of Senegal and Benin”
- Piotr Lewandowski: “Reflections on informality and casualisation from Eastern Europe”
- Morné Oosthuizen: “Public Spending and Demographic Change in Southern Africa”
- David Margolis: “Poverty, Employment and Education in Southern Africa, 2020-2100”
- Sara Troiano: “Forever young? Socio-economic implications of the demographic transition in Southern Africa”
- Shanta Devarajan: “The trade-off between employment and cronyism in the Middle East and North Africa"
- Haroon Bhorat: “Minimum Wages in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Primer”
- Sam Jones: “Understanding Mozambique’s growth experience through an employment lens”
- Olufunke Alaba: “Growth of Nigeria’s economy: a paradox”
- William Baah-Boateng: “Strong growth amidst job creation concerns: Insight from Ghana”
For more information, please contact sarah.marriott@uct.ac.za
To view the full suit of photographs from the event, please click here.
