Second Quarter Manufacturing Bulletin & Employment multipliers for the Cith of Johannesburg

The quarterly manufacturing bulletin is an initiative of the manufacturing circle. It serves to provide an analysis of trends in the South African manufacturing sector. The focus of this development dialogue will be to present the second quarter, 2015 manufacturing bulletin with the aim to inform policy and facilitate discussion around strategies to support the manufacturing sector in ways that support employment and equitable economic growth.

 

Presenter: Baba Tamana-Gqubule
Baba-Tamana Gqubule has a Masters in Development Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London and a Bachelor of Economics Honours degree from Rhodes University. She has experience as a Policy Analyst at the Economic Development Department. She was involved in developing policies aimed at broadening participation in the economy with a specific focus on conducting research to inform the department's strategy to increase the participation of womenin the economy.

 

The social, economic and political policy imperative of increasing employment has been heightened in recent months by numerous announcements of large-scale retrenchments and increasing awareness that national, provincial and local governments are increasingly falling behind their own targets for employment creation. Increasingly, public entities are being required to assess, and report on, the employment-supporting impacts of their programs. However, while the initial impact of public expenditure may be relatively easier to assess, the indirect and induced impacts of such spending are much harder to estimate. This presentation will focus on the results of attempts to estimate the employment-supporting impacts of spending and investment facilitation by the City of Johannesburg at a sectoral level.

Keith Lockwood was previously employed as an economist at the Central Merchant Bank [Senbank], the South African Federated Chamber of Industries and the South African Chamber of Business, before becoming an independent economic and business consultant in 1997.  Since commencing work as an economic consultant Keith has participated in research and advisory projects across a number of different sectors and policy fields, ranging from financial services, construction, infrastructure, and local economic development to skills development, regional integration, tax policy and industrial policy.