Labour gets tough over employment equity 

Employers who employ 50 or more employees must prepare and implement an Employment Equity (EE) Plan for the period from September 1, 2025  
until August, 2030 to align with the time frames of the five years of the sectoral Employment Equity (EE) targets. 

 Department of Employment and Labour’s deputy director of employment equity, Masilo Lefika, said this during a workshop organised as part of capacity building to prepare the EE inspectors when conducting inspections and enforcement to improve compliance with the new legislation. 

More than 50 Department of Employment and Labour inspectors specialising in employment equity were put through their paces to get them ready for the implementation of the EE Amendment Act, No 4 of 2022, which came into force on January 1, including its EE regulations published on April 15.  

The training workshop for employment equity inspectors focused, among others, on how to ensure implementation and compliance with the EE amendments, EE regulations, the implementation of five-year sector EE targets for the 18 economic sectors, and on the use of the EE online system to capture EE reports and request EE certificate of compliance. 

Lefika said the five-year sectoral numerical targets are key milestones towards achieving the equitable representation of the different designated groups within the four upper occupational levels in an employer’s workforce about the demographics of the applicable economically active population, and for persons with disabilities. 

He said the designated employer must comply with the numerical targets set in terms of section 15A (3) for the economic sector in which they operate. 

Lefika noted that a designated employer will incur no penalty or any form of disadvantage if there are reasonable grounds to justify its failure to comply with any annual EE target. 

The justifiable reasons to be considered for failure to comply with the annual EE targets were also outlined. Among them are insufficient recruitment opportunities, insufficient promotion opportunities, insufficient target individuals from the designated groups with the relevant qualifications, skills and experience, and the impact of economic circumstances on the business. 

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Sunday World