It’s time South Africa faced up to an honest question: what if the formal economy can’t deliver the jobs that are needed? I am an economist who has been working closely with South Africa’s administrative tax data over the past five years – arguably the best way to track progress in the formal sector. The sobering reality is that the country has gone backwards. And young people are bearing the brunt of the deterioration. The scale of the jobs crisis is now so large that even decades of strong e