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12 October 2020 | Story Andre Damons
Prof Ivan Turok
Prof Ivan Turok, National Research Foundation research professor at the University of the Free State (UFS) and distinguished research fellow at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC).
New evidence provides a detailed picture of the extraordinary economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. All regions lost about a fifth of their jobs between February-April, although the cities began to show signs of recovery with the easing of the lockdown to level 3. Half of all adults in rural areas were unemployed by June, compared with a third in the metros. So the crisis has amplified pre-existing disparities between cities and rural areas.

Prof Ivan Turok, National Research Foundation research professor at the University of the Free State (UFS) and distinguished research fellow at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), and Dr Justin Visagie, a research specialist with the HSRC, analysed the impact of the crisis on different locations in a research report (Visagie & Turok 2020).

The main conclusion is that government responses need to be targeted more carefully to the distinctive challenges and opportunities of different places. A uniform, nationwide approach that treats places equally will not narrow (or even maintain) the gaps between them, just as the blanket lockdown reflex had adverse unintended consequences for jobs and livelihoods.

According to the authors, the crisis has also enlarged the chasm between suburbs, townships and informal settlements within cities. More than a third of all shack dwellers (36%) lost their jobs between February and April, compared with a quarter (24%) in the townships and one in seven (14%) in the suburbs. These effects are unprecedented.

Government grants have helped to ameliorate hardship in poor communities, but premature withdrawal of temporary relief schemes would be a serious setback for people who have come to rely on these resources following the collapse of jobs, such as unemployed men.

Before COVID-19

In February 2020, the proportion of adults in paid employment in the metros was 57%. In smaller cities and towns it was 46% and in rural areas 42%. This was a big gap, reflecting the relatively fragile local economies outside the large cities.
Similar differences existed within urban areas. The proportion of adults living in the suburbs who were in paid employment was 58%. In the townships it was 51% and in peri-urban areas it was 45%.

These employment disparities were partly offset by cash transfers to alleviate poverty among children and pensioners. Social grants were the main source of income for more than half of rural households and were also important in townships and informal settlements, although not to the same extent as in rural areas.  

Despite the social grants, households in rural areas were still far more likely to run out of money to buy food than in the cities.

How did the lockdown affect jobs?

The hard lockdown haemorrhaged jobs and incomes everywhere. However, the effects were worse in some places than in others. Shack dwellers were particularly vulnerable to the level 5 lockdown and restrictions on informal enterprise. This magnified pre-existing divides between suburbs, townships and informal settlements within cities.
There appears to have been a slight recovery in the suburbs between April-June, mostly as a result of furloughed workers being brought back onto the payroll. Few new jobs were created. Other areas showed less signs of bouncing back.

Overall, the economic crisis has hit poor urban communities much harder than the suburbs, resulting in a rate of unemployment in June of 42-43% in townships and informal settlements compared with 24% in the suburbs. The collapse poses a massive challenge for the recovery, and requires the government to mobilise resources from the whole of society.


News Archive

Moshoeshoe Memorial Lecture to focus on Leadership challenges
2006-03-27

 Lecture to focus on Leadership challenges

 n Thursday 25 May 2006 – Africa Day – the University of the Free State (UFS) will host the inaugural King Moshoeshoe Memorial Lecture in honour of this great African leader and nation-builder.

 Prof Njabulo Ndebele, internationally renowned writer and academic, and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Town (UCT), will deliver the inaugural lecture at the Main Campus in Bloemfontein on the topic: Reflections on the Leadership Challenges in South Africa.

 “I see the lecture as part of a larger debate on leadership models, particularly the concept of African leadership, as well as the ongoing discourse about nation-building and reconciliation,” says Prof Frederick Fourie, Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the UFS.

 According to Prof Fourie, the Moshoeshoe project was launched at the UFS in 2004 to coincide with South Africa’s first decade of democracy and was part of the University’s centenary celebrations, having been founded in 1904.

 “Through this project the UFS seeks to honour a great African leader and demonstrate our commitment to transformation so as to create a truly inclusive and non-racial university,” said Prof Fourie.

 “As the founder of the Basotho nation, King Moshoeshoe is widely credited for his exceptional style of leadership, displaying the characteristics of diplomacy, reconciliation and peaceful co-existence in his efforts to unite diverse groups into one nation,” said Prof Fourie.

 As part of its ongoing Moshoeshoe project, the UFS commissioned a television documentary programme on the life and legacy of King Moshoeshoe. This was completed in 2004 and broadcast on SABC 2 later that year.


Abridged curriculum vitae of Njabulo S Ndebele

Professor Njabulo S Ndebele is currently Vice-Chancellor and Principal of UCT.

 Njabulo Ndebele began his term of office at UCT in July 2000, following tenure as a scholar in residence at the Ford Foundation’s headquarters in New York.  He joined the Foundation in September 1998, immediately after a five-year term of office as Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of the North in Sovenga, at the then Northern Province.  Previously he served as Vice-Rector of the University of the Western Cape.  Earlier positions include Chair of the Department of African Literature at the University of the Witwatersrand; and Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Dean, and Head of the English Department at the National University of Lesotho.

 An established author, Njabulo Ndebele recently published a novel The Cry of Winnie Mandela to critical acclaim.  An earlier publication Fools and Other Stories won the Noma Award, Africa’s highest literary award for the best book published in Africa in 1984.  His highly influential essays on South African literature and culture were published in a collection Rediscovery of the Ordinary.

 Njabulo Ndebele served as President of the Congress of South African Writers for many years.  As a public figure he is known for his incisive insights in commentaries on a range of public issues in South Africa.  He holds honorary doctorates from Universities in the Netherlands, Japan, South Africa and the United States of America.  He is also a Fellow of UCT.

Njabulo Ndebele is also a key figure in South African higher education.  He has served as Chair of the South African Universities Vice-Chancellor’s Association from 2002-2005, and served on the Executive Board of the Association of African Universities since 2001.  He has done public service in South Africa in the areas of broadcasting policy, school curriculum in history, and more recently as chair of a government commission on the development and use of African languages as media of instruction in South African higher education.  He recently became President of the Association of the AAU and Chair of the Southern African Regional Universities Association (SARUA).

Media release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Media Representative
Tel:   (051) 401-2584
Cell:  083 645 2454
E-mail:  loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za 
26 March 2006

 

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