The Commission for Employment Equity (CEE) on Tuesday revealed in a report that the number of senior management positions in the country held by black people remains low despite the Employment Equity Act.
According to the commission’s report only 22% of senior management positions in South Africa are held by black people, with black females in particular struggling to make it to senior-management level in companies.
The report in fact showed that professionally qualified African representation dropped significantly by 12,7% from 32,8% in 2000 to 16,2% in 2002 while African female representation decreased by 12,3% from 20,5% in 2000 to 4,9% in 2002.
CEE chairperson Prof Maapule Ramashala presented the report to the Minister of Labour, Membathisi Mdladlana, in Sandton.
Ramashala added that the representation of females in the higher echelons of the workplace and workforce movement is relatively high compared with their 37% representation in the total workforce. However, in real terms the report showed that the improvement in female equitable representation in all categories and at all levels of the workforce is rather insignificant.
According to the report, females accounted for only 26% of legislators, 14% of all top management positions and only 26% of all senior-management positions in the country.
Although females were fairly represented in the professional and technician categories, they tended to be clustered in the lowest rungs. Despite their low representation at top management, senior management and professional and middle management, females accounted for 15% of top-management terminations, 20% senior-management terminations and 34% professional and middle-management terminations, the report revealed.
The report also showed that females accounted for 19% of all top-management recruits, 29% of all senior-management recruits and 26% of all professional and middle-management recruits.
The poor representation of black females among the total representation of blacks and the total representation of females suggests that inadequate attention is being paid to the compounded disadvantage caused by the intersection between race and gender.
On disability in the workplace, the report stated that the data on disability remain unsatisfactory with only available data suggesting that people with disabilities remain at about 1% of the total workplace. Key indicators on people with disabilities reveal that they accounted for approximately 1% of all recruits, 0,5% of all promotions and 2,2% of all terminations. — I-Net Bridge