Employment Equity (EE) reporting season opens as Department of Labour kick-starts national EE roadshows with stakeholders
The Department of Labour’s annual Employment Equity (EE) national roadshows to strengthen Employment Equity legislation’s implementation and compliance mechanisms are to start on Thursday (13 August 2015) in Rustenburg, North West.
This year’s EE roadshows will be held under the theme: “Transformation - makes business sense”. The objectives of the roadshows are:
- To publicise the Code of Good Practice on Equal Pay/Remuneration for Work of Equal Value;
- To publicise the regulated employment equity templates (EE Analysis-EEA12 & EE Plan-EEA13); and
- To encourage designated employers to submit EE Reports On-Line.
Employers (companies, government departments etc.) are by law obliged to submit annually to the Department of Labour of their employment equity reports in regard to demographic profile, representation in the organisations and EE plans to address discrimination and inequity in the workplace.
There were 24 291 EE reports received in 2014.
The EE roadshows sessions will be held as follows: Rustenburg 13 August 2015 at Orion Hotel (1 Donkerhoek Road); Kimberley 19 August 2015 at Protea Hotel The Big Hole (West Circula Road); Polokwane 20 August 2015 at Bolivia Lodge (Opposite Mall of the North on Modjadji Road; Bloemfontein 26 August 2015 at Protea Hotel Bloemfontein Central (Bloem Plaza, East Burger Street); Durban 27 August 2015; Port Elizabeth 2 September 2015; Cape Town 3 September 2015; Witbank (Emalahleni) 8 September 2015 at Protea Hotel Witbank; and Johannesburg 9 September 2015 at Birchwood Hotel & Conference 14 View Point Road, Boksburg.
Venues for the rest of the roadshows will be confirmed in due course. The EE national roadshows presentations are to be held between 10h00 to 13h00.
The roadshows are targeted at employers or heads of organisations, academics, consultative forum members, human resource executives and practitioners; assigned Senior EE Managers/Transformation Managers, trade unions and employees among others.
The EE Act was first promulgated in 1998. It was also recently amended. The amended EE ACT of 2013 was assented in January 2014.
The national EE roadshows comes on the heels of the release last month of the Commission for Employment Equity (CEE) Report for 2014/2015. The report shows that in terms of Top Management Whites are still over-represented as they occupy 70% of the positions at the top management level, which is almost seven times more than their economically active population (EAP).
Next are Africans occupying 13,6% of the positions, and are under-represented compared to their EAP; Indians at 8,4% a representation three times than their EAP; Coloureds 4,7% who are also under-represented in comparison to their EAP. Foreign nationals occupy 3,4% of the positions at this level.
The report further shows that in terms of the economically active population – which includes people from 15 to 64 years of age who are either employed or unemployed and who are seeking employment – in terms of both male and female for respective population groups Africans constitute 76,2%; Coloured 10,6%; Indian 2,8%; and White 10,3%.
Department of Labour Director-General, Thobile Lamati said the prevailing status of equity in the workplace in South Africa shows that: “there is a lack of political will and buy-in into social contract”.
A former Chairperson of the CEE cautioned back in 2012 that: “it will take 129 years to transform the workplaces to reflect South Africa’s demographics judging by the snail pace of transformation”.
The EE reporting season opens on 1 September 2015 for both manual and online reporting. Manual reporting submissions closes on 1 October 2015. Online reporting will close on 15 January 2016.
Enquiries:
Mokgadi Pela
Acting Departmental Spokesman
Cell: 082 808 2168
