Last year, South Africa increased the minimum wage and the earnings above which an employee can enjoy the benefits of the Conditions of Employment Act.
Agricultural workers will also be entitled to the minimum wage in the future. Servants earn at least 19.10 Rand, employees in a worker program 12 Rand an hour and apprentices a graduated low wage according to their level of education. In addition, the lowest wages for workers in the sector of cleaning and wholesale and retail industries were determined according to their place and their job.
Furthermore, the income -earnings threshold, increases from previously 205 Rand to 212 per year. Income in this conditions means the gross annual salary of an employee without additional repayment such as meal and travel allowances or payments for overtime. The earnings wage determines which workers benefit from the protections of the Employment Act. These include, among other things, procedures on high working hours, overtime, work breaks or additional wages for Sunday work. While the government has argued that the South African minimum wage can be used as a tool to lift more citizens out of poverty, companies warn that further wage increases would be unsustainable and lead to additional job losses.
The New Recommendations
Most of the agents recommended raising the minimum wage by 1% above the rate of inflation as measured by the consumer price. A minority recommended raising the minimum wage by 1.5% above the rate of inflation. All agents also recommended aligning the minimum wage for servants with the minimum wage in 2022, according to a 2021 decision. The South African wage adjustment also coincides with the current pandemic, making it difficult to estimate and contain the collision of any increase in the minimum wage.
Given the current climate in the country, the collision of the COVID lockdown and recent losses from looting last year, an increase in the NMW would be disastrous for businesses and the finance, employers said. In a country like South Africa, which is already struggling with unprecedented unemployment rates, high poverty, stretched employers and entrepreneurs, and a wafer-thin faith in government and its ability to look after its most vulnerable citizens, unaffordable NMW will become the already battered mutilate the finance completely, leaving employers, business owners, their employees and their relatives destitute. If employers can’t afford a raise, they have no choice but to reduce hours or lay off their employees, the experts warned.
The reason that an employer cannot hire a person below the lowest wage, even with such a person’s agreement, deprives a chance worker of his livelihood and condemns him to a life of abject poverty. It would be appropriate for the government to reconsider its future stance on minimum wage increases, taking into account employers protests to increases. Their focus should be on avoiding bad future financial consequences for the country and rising unemployment. It is time for the government to question all the measures, of which the NMW is just one, and take against-employment measures.
