A research report submitted to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built
Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the
requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Engineering, 2017 / Productivity is an important topic within the mining industry and advances
in productivity open up opportunities to make the best possible use of
South Africa’s mineral wealth. The report uses publicly available data to
assess trends in productivity in the SA coal mining industry since the
1980s and to compare SA’s performance with that of the US and Australia.
It is found that between 1980 and 2003, productivity growth in the SA coal
mining sector was primarily driven by capital deepening. However,
productivity growth has been negative from 2004 onwards, despite
continued capital deepening. Possible explanations include resource
depletion, investment lags, deteriorating worker quality, increased
complexity, more stringent safety regulations and adverse labour market
conditions. The report highlights skills development and investment in
innovation as possible ways of addressing declining productivity
performance in the SA coal mining sector and recommends improvements
to the availability of data for productivity research purposes. / CK2018
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/25563 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Du Toit, Anthea |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | Online resource (ix, 122 leaves), application/pdf |
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