World Bank wins Obviousness Award
The World Bank has won an Obviousness Award and was second princess for Uselessness. “SA must fight inequality“, but not a word on the political and structural blockages to that. Not at all helpful.
-
Read more: World Bank wins Obviousness Award
-
Why structural unemployment is still with us, will stay
Read more: Why structural unemployment is still with us, will stayFelicity Duncan from moneyweb wrote an article on South Africa education for Moneyweb and Discovery Invest. It talks to a topic I’ve also blogged about, but with some truly horrifying league tables. This is the part that really disappointed me: according to the World Economic Forum’s latest Global Competitiveness Report, which ranks South Africa 133rd…
-
Massively over-paid unskilled workers?
Read more: Massively over-paid unskilled workers?Mike Schussler has crunched some numbers and suggests, very strongly, that SA unskilled labour is vastly overpaid compared to international peers. My recent posts about the cause of structural unemployment in SA have mentioned the supply and demand imbalance of unskilled labour and the downwards rigidity of wages. If Schussler is right and the current…
-
Should South Africa import Chinese TVs?
Read more: Should South Africa import Chinese TVs?Should South Africa import Chinese television sets? Your answer to this question depends probably on your education. If you were university educated in South Africa, you are likely to be in the market at various times in your life for a large LED backlit LCD panel with a high refresh rate and more HDMI inputs…
-
Unattractive Austerity
Read more: Unattractive AusterityOr should that be Austrians? It’s looking pretty bad for Europe.
-
Bad US unemployment news coming
Read more: Bad US unemployment news comingSome of the unadjusted figures look ok, but when you combine seasonal adjustments, underemployment and lower labour force participation rates, the US looks in worse shape than last month. Gallup poll on US unemployment
-
Yes the US government is part of the problem
Read more: Yes the US government is part of the problemJust not in the way some readers want to think. Check out the shocking graph of government employment in the middle of the worst period of financial performance since the Great Depression. (The sharp spike has nothing to do with stimulus an everything to do with temporary census employment.) [I’ve been asked to include a…
-
Vicious Cycles
Read more: Vicious CyclesThere has been much talk recently about the damaging long-term impact on employment and economic potential of prolonged cyclical unemployment. South Africa doesn’t have as much a cyclical unemployment problem as it does a structural unemployment problem, but there are some common worries. Long-term cyclical unemployment damages thee commit prospects through the stagnation of skills…
