CHARACTERISATION OF TIME-RELATED UNDEREMPLOYMENT IN A SOUTH AFRICAN MUNICIPALITY: A CASE OF BUSHBUCKRIDGE, MPUMALANGA PROVINCE

Labour market is often characterised by an imbalance between demand and supplythatsometime is a resultof the available labour resources not being fully utilised.Labour underutilisation isknown as underemployment. In South Africa, academicdebates and analysisabout underemployment are largely absent and workers insuch positions remain under-researched. Literature review indicates three specificcategories of underemployment namelytime-related, skill-related and income-based. This paper analyses the demographic characteristics oftime-relatedunderemployment using descriptive and logistic regression. The empiricalevidence portion of the paper is based on data from a survey “War on PovertyProgramme” conducted by theprovincial department of Social DevelopmentinMpumalanga. The study is based on a sample of21668individuals from targetedprioritised wards in BushbuckridgeMunicipality,whichisrural. This paperreveals that females aremore likely to be underemployed comparing to males. Italso indicates that older people are less likely to be underemployed compared toyounger people. Furthermore, the study results confirmedthat the more educatedone gets the less likely to be underemployed.Thestudy discusses the socio-economic policy implications of the findings and suggestions for future researchare made