Promoting human rights, issues of equity across racial and gender lines and a strong social dialogue will form the backbone of service delivery by the Department of Labour in 2012.
Emphasising this during his address to the Select Committee on Labour and Public Enterprises on the Strategic Plan of the department for 2012/13 in Cape Town earlier today, Director-General Nkosinathi Nhleko said, 'the role of the department is to make a contribution to creating a labour market that is conducive to investment, economic growth, employment creation and decent work.
To attain this, we have to effectively regulate the labour market through inspections, monitoring and enforcing compliance with labour laws'.
With the aim of promoting equity in the labour market, the department reported that a whopping 72% of the more than 11 000 companies inspected countrywide on employment practices by the end of December last year, achieved compliance. This trend was also reflected through an excess of 59 000 routine inspections that was conducted over the same period targeting firms in terms of compliance with conditions of employment and occupational health and safety.
The department also reported that it had achieved an 80% settlement rate from the 98 000 labour related complaints received.
Turning to public employment services that seek to create a database for jobseekers for placement in training and income-generating opportunities, Nhleko said that the department needs to broaden its horizon on how it defines its role in terms of government's objective of job creation in 2012. Already, a total of 139 000 jobseekers throughout the country were assessed and profiled on the employment services system. A further 64 798 unemployed people were referred to income generating opportunities.
Praising the successes of the turnaround strategy in place to restructure the Sheltered Employment Factories, Nhleko said that the entity is already reporting a sales increase of 15,43% (R12,682 million).This shows a 22% year on year increase on sales and goods he said.
Acknowledging their role to promote a sustainable economy, Nhleko said that the department needs to continuously look at the issue of organisational review to respond to the ever changing service delivery challenges adding that the issue of institutional capacity becomes critical then in this respect. He said that department will soon finalise the organisational review process.
Nhleko was accompanied by the Deputy Directors-General Les Kettledas and Lerato Molebatsi during the address.
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Labour department raises the service delivery bar for 2012/13
