Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/229303 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
WIDER Working Paper No. 2020/79
Publisher: 
The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), Helsinki
Abstract: 
Attempts to regulate the temporary employment sector have had mixed results internationally. In South Africa, temporary employment was regulated in 2015 through amendments to the Labour Relations Act. This paper uses administrative data to examine the short-term impact of strengthening employment protection legislation in the temporary employment services (TES) sector, focusing on employment, job duration, and wages. A regression discontinuity design is used as the amendments applied only to employees earning below a certain threshold. The findings suggest that while working conditions improved for those that transitioned out of the TES sector into the non-TES sector, a larger proportion of individuals moved out of the data into informal employment, unemployment, or economic inactivity after the amendments were implemented. Providing empirical evidence on the impact of the amendments is an important contribution to the debate on regulating labour markets in developing countries, particularly in South Africa given its considerable unemployment rate.
Subjects: 
administrative data
employment protection legislation
regression discontinuity design
South Africa
temporary employment services
JEL: 
J31
J41
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
ISBN: 
978-92-9256-836-8
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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