HERE is a really interesting blog entry on job creation in South Africa from Johanna, an ODI fellow based in Pretoria.
Below is a snipit that captures the extent of job creation quite well:
At petrol stations a guy will put petrol in my car and wash my windows while I wait in the car. In supermarkets, a lady packs my bags for me while someone else is keen to carry them back to my car, which is “watched” by at least one guard. When I go to get my hair cut, my hair dresser has an assistant who gives her the foil and another lady who will wash my hair. At work, we have cleaning ladies who do our dishes and extra staff to empty the bins and wipe the desks (again, different people!). There are guys who come to water the plants and they are supervised by yet other employees.
(My plants tend to just die - perhaps I shouldn't water them with the dregs of my tea... Or maybe I need a professional plant-waterer....)
1 comments:
Here is an interesting comment posted on my facebook wall:
"mmmmmmm.... so you have to pay the person who carries your bags and watches your car or does the supermarket? does that actually happen in S.A? i pay someone to service my bike even though i could probably do it myself but can't be bothered. i even pay someone when i have a puncture. am i
a) wasting money i could use better elsewhere
or
b) helping sustain an industry and thus helping to sustain the economy and halt the recession?"
And here is my response:
You pay the person -- in Maseru, if you have a trolley they will grab it from you and practically force you to accept their help.
You also tip the person who 'watches' your car -- else you might find a scratch down it upon your return (who knows what could happen when there is no one watching it?!)
I can see your difficulty regarding your bike. Let's start from some principles (you can disagree, of course):
1/ You don't have the right to any particular job (after, can debate as to whether you have the right to a job)
2/ Your job should be socially useful
For example, you might really, really feel that you have the right to make a living by making mud pies. But if no one wants to buy your mud pies, tough - you are not being socially useful. I could extend that by saying that if no one wants your mud pies at the price you are trying to sell them for, that's tough too. Essentially, your job is socially useful if you can provide a good or service at a price people are willing to pay. In the case of public goods (education, health maybe, etc) that is determined by the democratic system through Government.
Employment creation of the sort Jo is talking about is interesting. It might be that wages are so low that it is actually worth paying someone to hand you foil - in which case, this is a socially useful job. If, as I suspect, that is not the case, then you are basically employing some one to do something you would really rather do yourself - like pick up pieces of foil.
There is a lot of social pressure to employ people. They are not really contributing anything much to production because really, very little extra is being produced as a result of them working (so it makes very little difference to the total output of the economy). But it can be redistributive. The richer hairdresser pays a poorer unqualified person to hand her pieces of foil. Essentially, it is a way of redistributing resources from the better-off to the worse off.
That means that it probably has a good impact on poverty, at least in the short term. You could also re-distribute resources through taxation and benefits, but this way has several benefits - even if you are not being very productive, you are likely to be doing a little something that contributes to national resources; you are gaining some small skills by working; you are losing fewer skills etc. It also has less moral hazard problems than giving out cash.
Now for your own problem. It is perfectly reasonable to spend money on fixing a puncture. If you choose to pay someone to do it, you obviously feel it is worth it for you. The person fixing your puncture is doing something socially useful. It would be a different situation if you were forced to have someone fix it rather than do it yourself (like I have my trolley forced out of my hands, and have strong social pressure applied to employ, say, a gardener).
You might be helping to sustain an industry, but choosing to consume things you don't want in order to do that might not be that great an idea (fancy a mud pie?) - especially not in the long run. If you support my mud pie business by buying something you don't want I am unlikely to start making things you might really want. Then, as a community, we are making and consuming things we don't really want rather than those we do - like steak and kidney pies.
What do you think, Jo?
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