Maluleke, Veronica2024-10-102024-10-102024-07-24https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14519/786Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Master of Economics in Comparative Local Development in the Faculty of Economics and Finance.Over a decade after apartheid ended and the economy reopened, South Africa's unemployment and poverty rates still remain high. The National Development Plan emphasizes that small, micro, and medium-sized enterprises (SMMEs) play a pivotal role in addressing the three key challenges of unemployment, poverty, and income inequality. Moreover, the plan anticipates that SMMEs will play a substantial part in stimulating the economic growth, targeting to contribute between 60% to 80% of the GDP by the year 2030.Additionally, these SMMEs are expected to play a fundamental role in creating 9,900,000 jobs as part of the government plan to generate a total of 11 million new jobs opportunities. The research aimed to assess how SMMEs contributed to job creation on Tshwane region automotive sector. SMMEs are more labour-intensive than large enterprises due to their high labour absorption capacity. The study contributes to the existing literature on the role of SMMEs and the automotive sector in South Africa and worldwide. For the analysis of the role of SMMEs in creating jobs in the Tshwane automotive sector, the researcher employed a combined methods approach, which incorporated a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. To address the qualitative analysis, existing literature was reviewed. Quantitative analysis was performed using a questionnaire developed for primary data collection from SMMEs within the automotive industry in Tshwane. The major finding that emerged from the research was that SMMEs played a crucial part in creating and stimulating employment opportunities in Tshwane automotive sector. The result of this study adds substantially to the existing pool of knowledge and have the potential to nurture the growth SMMEs not only in Tshwane but also in various other regions across South Africa. The research study concluded with recommendations based on the findings.1-97 PagesenCC0 1.0 Universalhttp://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/Automotive sectorTshwaneUnemploymentDevelopmentSMMEsThesis