Productivity and Wages in South Africa

The world has experienced rapid productivity growth in the last three decades, but has this growth reflected in wages? In theory, under certain conditions, workers earn their marginal product so that productivity growth feeds into wages on a one-to-one basis. Given the contradictory literature, this paper revisited the productivity–wage relationship in South Africa using an industry-level panel dataset comprising 74 industries observed between 1993 and 2023. Using several estimators, four main findings are observed. First, productivity is found to have grown faster than wages. Second, the observed productivity–wage divergence partly reflects the squeezing of workers for profits. Third, productivity growth mostly outpaced the wages of low-skilled workers, workers on short-term contracts, and informal workers. Fourth, productivity growth largely undermined take-home pay compared to fringe benefits. These results imply that although boosting productivity growth may be important, its achievement may not lead to broad-based wage gains in South Africa unless the government pursues policies that realign productivity and the pay of low-skilled workers, informal workers, and workers on short-term contracts. Such policies may include sector-based incentives for businesses that improve wage conditions, increased union support in high-growth industries, improved regulation of the informal sector, and vocational training for low-skilled workers.