The Department of Employment and Labour (DEL) is consulting stakeholders across all sectors in the South African economy to set employment equity targets in each one, since transformation in the workforce has "left much to be desired".

Employment and Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi on Tuesday stated that particularly the middle-to-upper occupational levels under-represented Africans, Coloureds and people with disabilities.

He attended the nineteenth annual Commission for Employment Equity (CEE) report launch, which compiled the findings of 27 485 reports submitted by mostly private sector companies. This report represented about 7.4-million employees.

CEE chairperson Tabea Kabinde said there was still an over-representation of white males in top management across the country. The most transformation in the South African workforce was at the skilled technical occupational level.

She noted that self regulation by employers had been unsuccessful in transforming the workforce since 1994. “Setting of workplace targets by employers is not achieving the intended purpose of the Employment Equity Act.”

Nxesi added that employers were trusted to ensure equitable representation of the designated groups, as intended by the Act.

Therefore, the DEL is in the process of amending the Act to promulgate Section 53 thereof, which will force all employers to report on their employment equity and receive a compliance certificate.

Nxesi said that, should employers not be able to provide justifiable reason for not meeting their sector targets, prosecution will follow.

Kabinde anticipated that Parliament would approve the Bill to promulgate Section 53 by early next year.

She further pointed out that the sector targets would be aligned to the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment codes to avoid confusion and policy uncertainty. She added that consultation with stakeholders was currently taking place so that sector targets would be reasonable to achieve over five years, for each respective sector.

Responding to why Section 53 was not implemented when the Act was introduced 20 years ago, DEL director-general Thobile Lamati said no company would have been able to comply and the economy would have suffered.

He added that the workforce had only made small transformational movements so far because the risk for noncompliance was low.

Companies that have not been able to justify noncompliance to employment equity standards have been subjected to penalties, but not prosecution. The fines are set at between 2% and 10% of turnover.

Nxesi further acknowledged that a lack of inspectors to check for compliance had also contributed to companies’ reluctance to transform, since one inspector was often designated to monitor 20 000 employers, consequently meaning that many companies have never been inspected.

The Minister confirmed that more inspectors would be appointed and that they would be better trained to execute their duties.

Nxesi said that although the South African economy was in dire need of growth to create jobs, the DEL was focusing on employment equity because the inequality problem in the country needed to be addressed.

STATISTICS
The economically active population comprises 78.8% Africans, of which 42.8% are male and 36% are female; 9.6% Coloured, of which 5.2% are male and 4.4% are female; 2.7% Indian, of which 1.7% are male and 1% are female; and 9% White, of which 5.1% are male and 3.9% are female.

The occupational levels that the CEE uses for measurement are top management, senior management, professionally qualified, skilled technical, semiskilled and unskilled.

White people dominated the employment equity top management level, with 66.5% in 2018, compared with 67.7% in 2017 and 68.5% in 2016. African people followed with 15.1% representation in 2018, 14.3% in 2017 and 14.4% in 2016.

Indian people held 9.7% of employment equity at top management level in 2018, compared with 9.4% in 2017 and 8.9% in 2016. Coloured people held 5.3% of employment equity at this occupational level in 2018, 5% in 2017 and 4.9% in 2016, while foreign nationals held a consistent 3.4% share in employment equity over the period.

In the top management occupational level, 76.5% of employment was held by males and 23.5% by females in 2018, which is only a modest improvement compared with 77.1% and 22.9% respectively, in 2017.

The senior management occupational level followed a similar trend to the top management level in 2018.

Representation at the skilled technical occupational level was as follows: 63.3% by African people in 2018, compared with 60.2% in 2017, White people at 18.5% of employment, compared with 22.8% in 2017. Males occupied 51.9% of these positions, while females occupied 48.1%.

African people remained highly represented in the unskilled occupational level, holding 83.7% in 2018, followed by 11% Coloured, 1.1% White and 0.8% Indian. Males occupied 57.4% of these positions, while females occupied 42.7%.