The financialization of the South African economy and its implications for employment

Abstract

After 20 years in existence democratic South Africa is at the crossroads while people lives have changed significantly after 1994, the country has faced increasing levels of unemployment and inequality. Drawing from the Keynesian theory of employment and recent financialization literature, this paper looks at the trends in financial income as a share of profits in the mining sector and how this has affected real investment in the sector and linking with the theory we look at how his behaviour has contributed to the employment levels in the sector. This retrospective look at the mining sector is done in order to pick trends that might give us better insight for policy interventions in the sector in order to create employment opportunities for the population going forward