Working Paper
Can a wage subsidy system help reduce 50 per cent youth unemployment?
The paper examines the incidence and employment impacts of the Employment Tax Incentive, a South African wage subsidy system that is targeted at the employers of low-wage youth. The paper uses a triple differences strategy and survey and...
Background Note
Expanding a wage subsidy during lockdown
IntroductionThe South African youth wage subsidy started in 2014 to increase employment and create jobs for low-wage youth. The subsidy was temporarily raised in value and expanded to reach more workers due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During the...
Working Paper
The effect of wage subsidies on job retention in a developing country
Wage subsidies served as a dominant labour market policy response around the world to mitigate job losses in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, no causal evidence of their effects exists for developing countries.We use unique panel labour...
Working Paper
Estimating employment responses to South Africa’s Employment Tax Incentive
We present new evidence on the effects of South Africa’s Employment Tax Incentive (ETI), a hiring and employment wage subsidy aimed at reducing youth unemployment. We show that attempts to estimate firm-level treatment effects via conditional...
Working Paper
The effect of wage subsidies on job retention
Wage subsidies have served as a primary labour market policy used around the world to mitigate job losses in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In South Africa, where unemployment is among the highest globally, the Temporary Employer–Employee Relief...
Working Paper
A policy for the jobless youth in South Africa
This paper uses survey and tax administrative data to analyse the effects of a sizeable employer-borne payroll tax credit for young, low-wage workers in South Africa. We find limited impact of the wage subsidy on employment of young, low-wage workers...
Working Paper
The effects of the Employment Tax Incentive on South African employment
South Africa’s Employment Tax Incentive, launched in 2014, aimed to address low youth employment by reducing the cost of hiring young workers. We make use of anonymized tax administrative data from the 2012–2015 tax years to examine the effect of the...