The Status Implications and Challenges of Business Vulnerability in South Africa and its Potential Impact on Sustainable Business and Economic Growth

The development of entrepreneurship and formal business activities may hold a key to South Africa’s economic growth path and addressing job creation. Although many estimates are available, there is no certainty regarding the size and distribution of formal businesses in South Africa. The University of South Africa Bureau of Market Research (BMR) Business Research Unit (BRU) was established in an effort to conduct in-depth research into the formal business corpographics and dynamics in South Africa. Making use of available secondary data sources (SARS Tax Statistics, Stats SA GDP and GVA numbers, Stats SA QLFS and Stats SA liquidations and insolvencies statistics) the BRU constructed estimates for the number of businesses in South Africa by economic sector. Expanding on these estimates, the BRU derived estimates for the number of businesses by province and business size for the years 2016 to 2020 and conducted a forecast for 2021