WATCH: Data shows surprising jobs bounce back

During the peak of the first Covid-19 wave in 2020, a study conducted by an academic consortium that became known as Nids Cram offered policymakers unrivalled insights into the almost real-time effects of the coronavirus lockdown on households across the country.

On Wednesday, Wave 3 was published and the findings are equally fascinating, as the bounce back in jobs has been as impressive as the fall was frightening. More than two-million South Africans found work between June 2020 and October 2020, according to the latest round of data from the Nids-Cram survey. But hunger — and child hunger in particular — persists.

Michael Avery spoke to two of the lead researchers — Nic Spaull, an economist at Stellenbosch University and Reza Daniels, associate professor in the School of Economics at the University of Cape Town (UCT) — as well as Rudi Dicks, head of the project management office inside the Presidency.

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