Estimates of Employment in South Africa Under the Five-Level Lockdown Framework SCIS Working
Date
2020-05
Authors
Francis, David
Ramburuth-Hurt, Kamal
Valodia, Imraan
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS)
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
Abstract
During the COVID-19 pandemic and response, an important question, from both a health and economic policy perspective, is how many workers are able to return to work as the lockdown is eased and tightened in response to the spread of the virus. Using a static analysis derived from industry subsectors, we estimate employment allowed under each level of the five-level lockdown framework. We estimate that under level five of the lockdown framework, 40% of total employment is permitted, or 6.6 million workers. This rises to 55% (9.2 million) under level four; 71% (11.8 million) under level three; 94% (15.6 million) under level two and 100% under level one. This is a static analysis and assumes that no jobs are lost as a result of a lockdown. As such, its principle use is as a distributional analysis of the share of workers permitted to work under each level of the lockdown.
Description
Keywords
Labor markets, COVID-19 pandemic, Health and economic policy, Employment in South Africa