Huge problem for domestic workers in South Africa
Despite legal requirements to ensure domestic workers are protected for unemployment and occupational hazards, households have been shirking their duties, leaving a significant number of workers vulnerable.
South African households that employ domestic workers for more than 24 hours per month must register their employees with the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF), but data from Sweepsouth shows that this is not happening.
According to Sweepsouth’s latest annual domestic worker survey, the vast majority of employers are potentially shirking their duties, with 77% of domestic workers surveyed pointing out that they are not registered for UIF.
Only 7% indicated they were registered with the fund, while 15% said they didn’t know what their status was.
Further to this, the majority (59%) of domestic workers surveyed said they had no idea about their rights under the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act (COIDA), with some (29%) having at least heard of it, but only 12% having a full grasp of the protections.
Domestic workers have been considered formal employees under the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act (COIDA) for more than a year now, meaning that anyone employing a domestic worker should already be complying with the relevant laws.
These changes were signed into law in April 2023, significantly boosting domestic worker rights and protections in the country.
Under the COIDA, an employer is required to register their domestic worker for worker’s compensation.
The registration of domestic workers is done by completing the W.as.2 forms, which can be found on the Department of Labour’s website.
The Act also identifies the “main employer” of a domestic worker and holds them accountable for any workplace injuries sustained by the employee.
Additionally, employers and domestic workers are required to contribute to the UIF.
Domestic workers and employees working over 27 hours per month must be registered with the UIF. Employers with domestic workers working these hours must register with UIF and list them as employees.
A total of 2% of the employee’s salary must be paid to UIF each month – 1% has to be paid by the employer, and the other 1% may be deducted from the employee’s wages.
Additional requirements include providing a legitimate contract of employment, proof of payment of UIF contributions and a monthly payslip.
Not bothering
The latest Sweepsouth survey shows that many household employers are simply not bothering with these laws, and are also not keen to treat domestic workers as formal employees—disregarding things like paid leave.
This is despite domestic workers usually working more hours than most formal jobs require and facing the added challenge of having to do multiple jobs within a household.
The government has over the past few years moved to formalise domestic workers as a job category in South Africa. While it has met with success on the legislative front, the impact in the real world of work has not matched this.
While the minimum wage for domestic workers has been brought in line with the national rate, Sweepsouth’s data shows that, on a monthly basis, domestic workers are still earning less than the NMW on average.
The Sweepsouth survey showed that domestic workers in the country still earn, on average, R3,349 per month for female workers, and male domestic workers at R3,059.
From February 2024, the NMW was hiked by 8.5% to R27.58 per hour.
When calculated at 8 hours per day, the monthly wage for domestic workers (160 hours a month) should have increased from around R4,100 to just over R4,400 – an increase of R300.
Median earnings data from Stats SA shows that domestic workers have the lowest median salaries in the country, coming in at around R2,350 a month. This is less than half the national median of R5,417 a month.
This lower rate comes as households—the main employers of domestic workers—also find themselves under increasing financial pressure, which has resulted in job numbers in the sector declining.
According to Stats SA, 23,000 domestic worker jobs were lost in the second quarter of 2024 (April to June), taking the total number of workers employed to 843,000.
This is a 3% drop in employment in the sector.
Adding to the pain for domestic workers, there was also a year-on-year decline in the number of employed, though this was a much smaller loss of 1,000 workers—a drop of 0.1%.
The worrying detail in the data is that South Africa is still employing about 150,000 fewer domestic workers than before the Covid-19 pandemic at the start of 2020.
This has been the case for the last four years, with the country unable to recover to pre-pandemic levels representing a likely permanent loss of jobs in the sector.
Pre-Covid-19, South Africa employed over 1 million domestic workers. Industry reports pointed to around 250,000 domestic workers losing their jobs during the pandemic.
Read: Major blow to domestic workers in South Africa as households call it quits
Loading ...
