ILO Sub-Regional Office for Southern Africa, Harare

Enclavity and Constrained Labour Absorptive Capacity in Southern African Economies

The paper is concerned with the twin questions of why it is that a majority of the labour force in African countries continues to be unemployed or underemployed, and why it is that the response of employment to increases in gross domestic product and investment is low. This is what the author terms the problem of low labour absorptive capacity of African economies.