This news aggregator site highlights South African labour news from a wide range of internet and print sources. Each posting has a synopsis of the source article, together with a link or reference to the original. Postings cover the range of labour related matters from industrial relations to generalist human resources.
Business Report writes that trade unions have called on the government to urgently review its economic policies amid a jobs bloodbath that has seen mining and manufacturing companies announce plans to retrench over 5,000 employees.
Partially state-owned Telkom, retail giant Massmart and ferrochrome producers Merafe Resources and Samancor last week announced that they were in consultation with unions to possibly cut a combined 5,765 jobs. Solidarity’s Willie Venter on Monday admonished the government to urgently re-evaluate the existing economic policies that suppressed the manufacturing industry so as to avert job losses. “Although companies cite the many challenges experienced in local and international markets as reasons for retrenchments, they also consistently argue that more competitive electricity and transport tariffs are needed to be able to compete with international competitors,” said Venter. He maintained that the government made it impossible for companies to compete internationally because of its role in increased productions costs, the erratic electricity supply and increases in electricity tariffs, which were the main reasons for the retrenchments. Riefdah Ajam of the Federation of Unions of SA (Fedusa) noted that commitments made at last year’s Presidential Jobs Summit were yet to be met by industry players. “The outlook for 2020 is very bleak. The Finance Minister (Tito Mboweni) will have to balance the fiscus by trying to reducing the headcount of public sector employees while companies including Telkom are cannibalising its employees,” Ajam stated.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Dineo Faku at Business Report
- Read Solidarity’s statement at Polity
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page