The Star reports that Minister of Employment and Labour Thulas Nxesi has vowed to punish private sector companies that intentionally block qualified black professionals and those with disabilities from assuming top senior positions.
Nxesi made this pledge on Tuesday after receiving what he described as a “worrying report about transformation in the workplace”, which showed that black and coloured workers were the least considered for senior jobs in the private sector, compared to national and local governments. The annual report was tabled by the Commission of Employment Equity (CEE). It showed that, among other things, white employees continued to hold senior positions in the government despite only 9% of them in the country’s population being economically active compared to the 79% of working blacks. The report also gave a breakdown in the estimates of people said to be professionally qualified in the country, showing that black individuals were at 40% compared to white individuals at 37.4%. The report, however, found that private companies, despite such telling figures, consistently recruited white people to senior positions. It furthermore established that discrimination also affected people with disabilities. Nxesi expressed concern about “the pace of transformation in the workplace” and promised that the government would be forced “to resort to hard measures to ensure transformation did take place in the workplace.”
- Read the full original of the above report by Baldwin Ndaba at Independent News
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