IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ctw/wpaper/202007.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Employment Tax Incentive Scheme in South Africa: An Impact Assessment

Author

Listed:
  • Haroon Bhorat
  • Robert Hill
  • Safia Khan
  • Kezia Lilenstein
  • Ben Stanwix

    (Development Policy Research Unit, University of Cape Town)

Abstract

The Employment Tax Incentive (ETI) is a South African wage subsidy programme introduced in 2014 as a form of tax relief for firms hiring workers between the ages of 16 and 29, who earn less than R6 000 per month. Designed as a tool to combat high levels of youth unemployment, the results of studies estimating the effect of the ETI using survey data have shown little to no effect of the subsidy. This paper makes use of the administrative tax data made available through National Treasury in collaboration with the South African Revenue Service (SARS) to accurately identify and estimate the impact of the ETI using individual and firm-level tax returns for the period 2013 to 2016 using a Difference-in-Differences methodology combined with propensity score matching. The impact of the ETI is found to be statistically significant but small in magnitude: During a time when employment levels were decreasing, it is estimated that for every 1 job lost in a non-ETI claiming firm, ETI firms only lost between 0.51 and 0.66 jobs on average. This translates to a total of 35 333 jobs saved between 2014 and 2016 as a result of the ETI. Small firms of fewer than 10 employees have experienced the most benefit from the ETI, with growth of between 0.888 and 0.928 percentage points greater than comparable non-ETI firms, again illustrating a small, but statistically significant, effect of the policy. Furthermore, the effect of the ETI seems to be declining over time, with growth of ETI firms relative to non-ETI firms slowing down in 2015/16 relative to 2014/15, although this is not generalisable to all firm sizes. The ETI does not appear to have negatively impacted employment for workers who are thought to have been most at-risk of displacement due to the subsidy, and has not had any measurable impact on the non-wage benefits of those employed as a result of the subsidy.

Suggested Citation

  • Haroon Bhorat & Robert Hill & Safia Khan & Kezia Lilenstein & Ben Stanwix, 2020. "The Employment Tax Incentive Scheme in South Africa: An Impact Assessment," Working Papers 202007, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
    • Handle: RePEc:ctw:wpaper:202007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://commerce.uct.ac.za/sites/default/files/content_migration/commerce_uct_ac_za/1093/files/DPRU%2520WP202007.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2020
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Vimal Ranchhod & Arden Finn, 2016. "Estimating the Short Run Effects of South Africa's Employment Tax Incentive on Youth Employment Probabilities using A Difference-in-Differences Approach," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 84(2), pages 199-216, June.
    2. Cecil Mlatsheni & Murray Leibbrandt, 2015. "Duration of unemployment in youth transitions from schooling to work in Cape Town," SALDRU Working Papers 159, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    3. Huttunen, Kristiina & Pirttilä, Jukka & Uusitalo, Roope, 2013. "The employment effects of low-wage subsidies," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 49-60.
    4. Amina Ebrahim & Murray Leibbrandt & Vimal Ranchhod, 2017. "The effects of the Employment Tax Incentive on South African employment," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2017-5, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    5. Justine Burns & Lawrence Edwards & Karl Pauw, 2010. "Wage Subsidies to Combat Unemployment and Poverty: Assessing South Africa’s Options," SALDRU Working Papers 45, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    6. James Levinsohn, 2008. "Two Policies to Alleviate Unemployment in South Africa," CID Working Papers 166, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    7. Guido W. Imbens, 2004. "Nonparametric Estimation of Average Treatment Effects Under Exogeneity: A Review," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(1), pages 4-29, February.
    8. Channing Arndt, 2018. "New Data, New Approaches and New Evidence: A Policy Synthesis," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 86(S1), pages 167-178, January.
    9. James Levinsohn & Neil Rankin & Gareth Roberts & Volker Schöer, 2014. "Wage subsidies and youth employment in South Africa: Evidence from a randomised control trial," Working Papers 02/2014, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    10. Amina Ebrahim & Murray Leibbrandt & Vimal Ranchhod, 2017. "The effects of the Employment Tax Incentive on South African employment," WIDER Working Paper Series 005, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    11. Vimal Ranchhod & Arden Finn, 2015. "Estimating the Effects of South Africa's Youth Employment Tax Incentive – An Update," SALDRU Working Papers 152, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Haroon Bhorat & Safia Khan, 2018. "Structural Change and Patterns of Inequality in the South African Labour Market," Working Papers 201801, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bojosi Morule & Konstantin Makrelov, 2019. "The effectiveness of the Employment Tax Incentive August 2019," Occasional Bulletin of Economic Notes 9481, South African Reserve Bank.
    2. Seán M. Muller, 2021. "Evidence for a YETI? A Cautionary Tale from South Africa's Youth Employment Tax Incentive," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 52(6), pages 1301-1342, November.
    3. Amina Ebrahim & Rebone Gcabo & Lilian Khumalo & Jukka Pirttilä, 2019. "Tax research in South Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2019-9, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    4. Isaac Marcelin & Daniel Brink & David Oluwatosin Fadiran & Hammed Adedeji Amusa, 2019. "Subsidized labour and firms: Investment, profitability, and leverage," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2019-50, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    5. Amina Ebrahim & Murray Leibbrandt & Vimal Ranchhod, 2017. "The effects of the Employment Tax Incentive on South African employment," WIDER Working Paper Series 005, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    6. Amina Ebrahim & Jukka Pirttilä, 2019. "Can a wage subsidy system help reduce 50 per cent youth unemployment?: Evidence from South Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2019-28, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    7. Amina Ebrahim & Murray Leibbrandt & Vimal Ranchhod, 2017. "The effects of the Employment Tax Incentive on South African employment," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2017-5, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    8. Stewart Ngandu & Carolyn Chisadza, 2018. "Employer characteristics and youth employment outcomes in the formal sector in South Africa: Assessment using administrative tax data," WIDER Working Paper Series 82, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    9. Stewart Ngandu & Carolyn Chisadza, 2018. "Employer characteristics and youth employment outcomes in the formal sector in South Africa: Assessment using administrative tax data," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2018-82, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    10. Vimal Ranchhod & Arden Finn, 2016. "Estimating the Short Run Effects of South Africa's Employment Tax Incentive on Youth Employment Probabilities using A Difference-in-Differences Approach," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 84(2), pages 199-216, June.
    11. Kanayo Ogujiuba & Ntombifuthi Mngometulu, 2022. "Does Social Investment Influence Poverty and Economic Growth in South Africa: A Cointegration Analysis?," Economies, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-23, September.
    12. Daniela Casale & Aalia Cassim, 2018. "How large is the wage penalty in the labour broker sector?: Evidence for South Africa using administrative data," WIDER Working Paper Series 48, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    13. Benjamin Schünemann & Michael Lechner & Conny Wunsch, 2015. "Do Long-Term Unemployed Workers Benefit from Targeted Wage Subsidies?," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 16(1), pages 43-64, February.
    14. Derek Yu, 2012. "Youths in the South African labour market since the transition: A study of changes between 1995 and 2011," Working Papers 18/2012, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    15. Isaac Marcelin & Daniel Brink & Wei Sun, 2021. "Firms' resilience to financial constraints: The role of trade credit," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2021-78, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    16. Levinsohn, James & Pugatch, Todd, 2014. "Prospective analysis of a wage subsidy for Cape Town youth," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 169-183.
    17. Amina Ebrahim & Jukka Pirttilä, 2022. "A policy for the jobless youth in South Africa: Individual impacts of the Employment Tax Incentive," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2022-124, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    18. Aalia Cassim & Daniela Casale, 2018. "How large is the wage penalty in the labour broker sector?: Evidence for South Africa using administrative data," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2018-48, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    19. Bassier, Ihsaan, 2022. "Firms and inequality when unemployment is high," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 117999, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    20. Dieter von Fintel, 2017. "Institutional wage-setting, labour demand and labour supply: Causal estimates from a South African pseudo-panel," Development Southern Africa, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(1), pages 1-16, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Employment Tax Incentive (ETI); South Africa; wage subsidy programme; firms;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ctw:wpaper:202007. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Waseema Petersen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dpuctza.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.