The Department of Labour in conjunction with the University of South Africa (Unisa) and Human Sciences Research Council ( HSRC) has unveiled five research results on Unemployment Insurance Fund’s (UIF) Client satisfaction, compliance by catering, domestic and minibus taxi sectors as well as the effectiveness of Employment Services of South Africa ( ESSA) in Pretoria.
In opening the seminar, Setsomi Molapo, Chief Director responsible for Labour Market Policy, said: “The research is a yardstick through which we measure our performance in terms of Batho-pele principles and also on the challenges we face in terms of these three sectors in registering their employees for UIF as well as the effectiveness of ESSA.”
The research on Clients satisfaction revealed that overall the public is satisfied with the services offered by the UIF with the only challenge being the provision of parking and baby changing-rooms.
In terms of compliance with the UIF, the research shows that employers in these three sectors; minibus taxi, catering and domestic do not register their employees for UIF and thus do not contribute to the fund. This is despite Sectoral determinations in all these sectors.
The researches recommend that there be consistency in enforcement of compliance with the law in terms of registering and declaring employees, inclusion of migrant workers and changing perceptions about UIF as a weak short term instrument to deal with the risk of unemployment and consequently hold long-term implications of destitution.
Reasons cited for noncompliance include: financial constraints, driver retention, refusal, ignorance, lack of information, blame shifting, workers not permanent, UIF repeatedly capturing incorrect information and workers having dual employment.
UIF is a fund managed by the Department of Labour and is used to soften the hardship of unemployment. Employers and employees are obliged to contribute a percentage to the fund.
The ESSA research report, presented by the HSRC revealed that over 700 000 of the 4.3 million unemployed people are registered as work seekers on the ESSA system. This has not changed since 2008.Of the 4.3 million unemployed only 14.5 percent are registered for UIF.
The challenges ESSA is facing includes staff and IT systems’ capacity, inter-relationships between stakeholders and matching and placing more work seekers in employment.
For the period 2007 to 2010, 251 748 opportunities were registered with ESSA and this is grows by an average of 96 percent. There are 2 714 employers registered on ESSA.
ESSA is an employment service provided by the Department of Labour’s Public Employment Services entity whereby those who are unemployed and prospective employers register on the system. The system matches people to posts.
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