Question NW3990 to the Minister of Employment and Labour
04 December 2023 - NW3990
Ngcobo, Mr SL to ask the Minister of Employment and Labour
(1)Whether, with regard to the struggling domestic employment sector where it is still over 150 000 jobs short of full recovery since COVID-19, his department has plans to address the challenges of private firms operating in failing municipalities; if not, what is the position in this regard; if so, what steps has he taken to assist these businesses to mitigate the negative impact of the quality of public services in these municipalities in order to sustain employment for domestic labour; (2) whether his department has specific measures in place to encourage job creation for domestic employment through legislative reforms within the sector; if not, what is the position in this regard; if so, what are the relevant details? NO5245E
Reply:
(a) According to the latest Quarterly Labour Force survey released by Statsa, South Africa's unemployment rate dipped again in the third quarter of 2023, to 31, 9%.
That's a decrease of 0,7 of a percentage point from 32,6% in the second quarter of the year indicating that there is a recovery of employment levels since Covid -19 period.
It has been noted that service industries that were heavily affected by COVID-19 are gradually recovering, and these are largely labour-intensive. There was a level of increase in employment, to pre-COVID-19 levels in the labour market.
The Statistician General has indicated that "Employment gains were observed among all sectors with the highest in the formal sector (up by 287 000), followed by the Agricultural sector (up by 61 000), Informal sector (up by 29 000) and Private households (up by 22 000) in Q3: 2023."
Government has undertaken a number of steps to assist private firms and businesses, including the provision of stimulus through tax incentive, small business development activities to help firms recover and massive injections by the Department of Employment and Labour through its entities like UIF and initiatives like Turnaround Programmes of Productivity SA, and CCMA interventions to help prevent job losses.
(b) The Department has extended legislative coverage to all employees, including domestic employment, as demonstrated by the changes to National Minimum Wage, extension of UIF coverage and more recently extension of coverage by the Compensation Fund.
The Department is also introducing a National Labour Migration Policy whose main objective is to protect lower level workers from unfair employment completion. The Employment services Amendment Bill will regulate the manner in which foreign nationals can be employed, it imposed conditions or obligations to transfer skills during the limited employment duration,
it will restrict the total numbers of foreign nationals that can be employed at any point in any establishment and will strengthen the role of both Employment Inspectors and Home Affairs Immigration Officers in addressing the problem of undocumented foreign nationals employed in various sectors of the economy.
The Department of Small Business Development working with Provincial and Municipalities are also tightening operations of foreign nationals in the informal sector as we believe that millions of South Africans can create self-employment in those sectors.
The Department of Home Affairs has also released a white paper that seeks to address the inconsistencies that we have since identified in the Refugees Act, the Citizenship Act and the Immigration Act.