It’s Jobs Day
We have important data this morning. Statistics South Africa will release its results of the Quarterly Labour Survey for the fourth quarter of 2019. To recap, the third-quarter data showed that South Africa’s primary agricultural employment jumped by 4.5% y/y from the...
What’s needed for South Africa’s agriculture to boost jobs?
I have been punting that agriculture could help boost employment in South Africa, but the latest jobs data are a reminder that fundamental change is essential. Today, July 30, we learned that South Africa’s primary agricultural employment fell by 0.2% in the second...
Blueberries and Jobs in South Africa
I’ve previously presented the case for agriculture as one of the sectors that could boost rural economic growth and employment in South Africa. The sub-sector that has attracted attention in the recent past is horticulture because it is labour intensive. Within the...
Wandile Sihlobo is the Chief Economist of the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa (Agbiz) and the author of “Finding Common Ground: Land, Equity and Agriculture“.
He is a Senior Lecturer Extraordinary at the Department of Agricultural Economics at Stellenbosch University and a Visiting Research Fellow at the Wits School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand.
Sihlobo was appointed as a member of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Presidential Economic Advisory Council in 2019 (and re-appointed in 2022), having served on the Presidential Expert Advisory Panel on Land Reform and Agriculture from 2018.
He is also a member of the Council of Statistics of South Africa (Stats SA) and a Commissioner at the International Trade Administration Commission of South Africa (ITAC).
Sihlobo is a columnist for Business Day, The Herald and Farmers Weekly magazine.
His weekly podcast, “Agricultural Market Viewpoint with Wandile Sihlobo“, is available on all podcast platforms.
He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Agricultural Economics from the University of Fort Hare and a Master of Science degree in Agricultural Economics from Stellenbosch University.