SAMANTHA ENSLIN-PAYNE: Running as fast as we can to stay still
It's like two steps back and one step forward, and then, looking back, we realise we haven't made much progress, if any
Almost 10 years ago, South Africa lost one million jobs as the economy sank into recession. From the last quarter of 2008, the economy tanked. At its worst, growth shrank more than 6% in the first quarter of 2009. The recession did not last a year, but it feels as if we never really recovered. We lost our mojo, that spirit that had spurred the economy on from 2000 until 2007. Nothing is all good - there were negative consequences to those boom years, such as runaway house prices, and there was a lot of spending - South Africans do like to spend (or at least used to) like there is no tomorrow. So it ended badly, with a nasty consumer-debt hangover. In the years between late 2009 and now, the economy has grown in fits and starts but it has been unconvincing. Last year, in particular, we had just two quarters of growth. It suggests that we have been in an unofficial recession for longer than the official numbers from Stats SA show. This week, Stats SA said first-quarter GDP had shrunk ...
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