Gabriel Espi-Sanchis is a labour economist who has worked extensively at both the University of Cape Town (SALDRU; DataFirst) and the University of the Witwatersrand (the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies; School of Economics and Finance). His research has generally dealt with employment dynamics of different age groups, as well as gender representation and pay gaps, and has often utilised historical and novel sources of data to shed new light on labour market issues.
His recent work as a SALDRU researcher has focused on understanding the changing forms of precarious work in the South African labour market, and on describing labour market restructuring in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown, especially along the dimensions of age and employment history.