Employers warned of domestic workers UIF penalties South African employers of domestic workers — estimated to number about a million — have been warned of stiff penalties for non-compliance with the looming deadline for the implementation of unemployment insurance.
Employers can register their domestic workers as from March 20 for unemployment insurance — the deadline being April 1. Employers and employees alike are obligated to pay 1% of a domestic worker’s salary into the fund — with minimum wages set from November last year at R800 a month for full-time workers in more affluent areas.
Labour Department director-general Rams Ramashia said at a briefing at Parliament on Monday that there would be strict penalties for non-compliance.
Those found not to have paid would have to pay back the amounts owed together
with penalties of “up to 200% of what should have been contributed in the first
instance”.
Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana said no structures for the registration of domestic workers for unemployment insurance existed anywhere else in the world. He described the South African step to draw them into the net as “unprecedented”.
He said he had made no secret that there probably would be an “intractable administrative challenge … as we navigate uncharted waters … but we will not be deterred.”
Ramashia said the department did not have figures available for expected revenue and expenditure flows arising out of the extension of the UIF system to domestic workers. – I-Net-Bridge