Profiling green jobs and workers in South Africa: An occupational tasks approach

To adequately prepare the labor force for the green economy, policymakers and workers require a detailed understanding of the nature of green jobs. This study profiles green jobs in the South African labour market. We use labour force survey data and apply an occupational task-based approach to identify current green occupations and associated jobs, count them, and profile their workers and wages. We find that 5.5 percent to 32 percent of South Africa’s jobs can be labelled as “green”, where the former estimate uses a strict definition and the latter uses a broad definition. The share of strictly green jobs has not changed over eight years. While 65 percent of strictly green occupations can be classified as high (skill)-occupations, only 55 percent of workers are in these occupations, reflecting numerous employment opportunities in mid-level and elementary green occupations. Strictly green occupations tend to be male-dominated and held by prime-age (25-44) workers with post-secondary school. However, the profile of those in the greenest of the green occupations are older (age 45-65) workers and black African with lower than matric qualifications. Policies to prepare South Africans to engage in the green economy include developing a strategy to teach new and existing workers to use green technologies, targeting green occupations in youth development programs, making a concerted effort to support women in STEM, helping low-skilled green workers to organize and improve their work conditions, and continuing to collect and analyze data to better track South Africa’s progress in becoming a green labour force.