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Recent developments in South Africa’s labour market are encouraging in that there has been a sizeable upward turn in employment creation. Though the recent pick-up in employment is still lagging compared with labour supply trends, the increase in formal employment is a positive development for the labour market. The pace of acceleration in real economic activity, if sustained, is likely to provide desirable inroads to the unemployment challenge. On the demand side of the labour market, the strong growth performance by all sectors of the economy is more than likely to boost the absorptive capacity in the near to medium term.The nature of the impact of economic growth on employment growth continues to elude researchers and policy-makers alike. Among imperative issues that need greater research and policy attention to improve the understanding of the relationship between output growth and job creation are supply side issues such as what drives entry into and exit from the labour market and what the trends are in that regard. This volume has two articles that attempt to engage with these issues.The first article is a case study based on a survey that tracks the labour market activities of a sample consisting of the same individuals over time. This enables an identification of personal attributes among the unemployed that facilitate subsequent transition into paid employment or, conversely, their drop-out of the labour force completely. Evidently, educational attainment and spatial location emerge as critical characteristics that determine the likelihood for the unemployed to either find work or to detach themselves from the labour market.The other article is an explorative analysis of a selection of underlying factors that can act as incentives or disincentives for participation in the labour market either through job seeking or employment. These determinants of labour force participation include discouragement effects, HIV/Aids and the social security system. It emerges that while the discouragement effect, by its nature, has a negative impact on labour force participation, the impact of the latter two factors is much more complex. The labour market outcomes can be either a reduced or increased likelihood of participation, especially if the dynamics are considered at household rather than individual level.The government has committed itself to halving unemployment by the year 2014. By highlighting these critical issues, this volume seeks to encourage scientific investigation and kindle policy dialogue. Its findings are far from conclusive in that the first article is not based on a national representative sample and the second one is based on preliminary evidence which needs to be buttressed with more empirical rigour. It therefore serves to raise new dimensions or perspectives rather than to reach conclusions about labour market dynamics in South Africa.