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.
Sunday Independent reports that the National Treasury’s plan for public servants to take early retirement in order to reduce the state’s wage bill has failed to gain momentum, with few employees taking up the offer.
Finance Minister Tito Mboweni indicated in a recent written reply to a parliamentary question that only 5,289 public servants had applied for early retirement by the end of December, and 2,964 applications had been approved. From the total number of applications for early retirement, 3,332 were from national departments and 1,957 were from the provinces. “A total of 2,964 applications were recommended for funding and communicated to the respective national departments,” said Mboweni. Treasury had previously said it sought to cut the wage bill by billions of rands and that it wanted 30,000 people to take up the offer of early retirement. But public sector unions have been fighting against moves for the reduction of the headcount. Cosatu and other unions have tabled a CPI plus 4% wage increase proposal at the bargaining council. They are also in the midst of a fight with the National Treasury over the latter’s freezing of the wage increases emanating from the 2018 wage deal
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Siyabonga Mkhwanazi on page 2 of The Sunday Independent of 7 March 2021
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page