Question CW29 to the Minister of Employment and Labour

Reply:

The honourable member should be appraised that the Department of Employment and Labour has continually published an annual analysis of the strike incidents (January to December) in the country. This is in line with the national and international requirements. The strikes information is based on the information supplied by the employers in the Labour Relations Act (LRA) Forms 9.2 after the strike incident ended in a particular work place. All industrial action reports are accessible through the DEL website (Noting that the 2019 Industrial Action results are still under development phase).

a) How many working days were lost as a result of strike actions in the (i) 2013/14, (ii) 2014/15, (iii) 2015/16, (iv) 2016/17, (v) 2017/18 and (vi) 2018/19 financial years,

Calendar year (January to December)

Year (January to December)	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
No. of Strikes and lockouts	114	88	110	122	132	165
Working days lost	1 847 006	10 264 775	903 921	960 489	946 323	1 158 945

b) which sectors experienced the highest rate of strike actions,

In all the years, the Community industry recorded the highest strike actions as per the DEL strike database.

Year (January to December)	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
Sector	Community	Community	Community	Community	Community	Community
Number of strike	34	30	34	47	58	77

c) how much was lost in wages in respect of strike actions for the said period,

Year (January to December)	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
Wages Lost (Rands)	6 732 108 487	6 176 768 282	116 546 293	161 049 109	251 409 542	266 898 061

 

(d) what was the employment-to-population ratio,

Year (January to December)	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
Employment to population ratio	43.3	43.0	44.2	43.5	43.1	43.3

(e) (i) how many low-skilled workers were employed for the said period and

According to Statistics SA report (Labour Market Dynamics), proportions of low skilled workers were published. However, the details could not be obtained at the time this reply was concluded.

Year	Low- skilled occupation	Semi- Skilled Occupation	Skilled occupation
2013	42,8	45,2	12,0
2014	28,2	47.2	24.6
2015	30.2	47.6	22.3
2016	29,7	46,9	23,4
2017	29,5	47,0	23,5

(ii) Which sector was the largest component that employed such workers?

The largest component of low-skilled workers were employed in the construction industry but the domestic sector is another sector where low-skilled workers are also employed.