BL Premium reports that Harmony Gold is not overly concerned about the Department of Employment and Labour’s new policy of introducing quotas for the number of foreign nationals with work visas who can be employed in a major economic sector.

This was indicated by CEO Peter Steenkamp on Monday, who said the company had not been recruiting foreign workers recently. Harmony’s SA operations employ about 40,000 workers. Of these, 5,000 are foreign nationals, mainly from Lesotho, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. According to Steenkamp, the number of foreign workers used to be much higher but has been declining. Many are “legacy people who have been here for many years. But as these workers finish employment with us and retire, we don’t replace them with foreigners, we replace them with South Africans,” Steenkamp indicated. Employment and labour minister Thulas Nxesi released a national labour migration policy for public comment on Monday. The government intends to introduce quotas on the total number of documented foreign nationals with work visas who can be employed in major economic sectors.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Karl Gernetzky and Denene Erasmus at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)

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