{"id":374906,"date":"2020-02-18T11:46:42","date_gmt":"2020-02-18T09:46:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=374906"},"modified":"2020-02-18T11:59:37","modified_gmt":"2020-02-18T09:59:37","slug":"new-salaries-for-domestic-workers-after-the-national-minimum-wage-increase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/374906\/new-salaries-for-domestic-workers-after-the-national-minimum-wage-increase\/","title":{"rendered":"New salaries for domestic workers after the national minimum wage increase"},"content":{"rendered":"

The minister of labour, Thulas Nxesi, has announced <\/a><\/strong>that South Africa will have a new minimum wage of R20.76 as of 1 March 2020.<\/p>\n

In a gazette published on Tuesday (18 February), Nxesi also outlined the new minimum wages for a number of major sectors not covered by the minimum wage – including domestic workers.<\/p>\n

From 1 March 2020, domestic workers will be entitled to a minimum wage of R15.57 per hour – an increase of 57 cents from the current baseline.<\/p>\n

The reason for the lower wage is due to the higher risk of unemployment for domestic workers if the minimum wage is too high, National Treasury said in its\u00a0NWM document<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

While this increases will be welcomed by some, it is unlikely to help struggling workers who are already battling to make ends meet.<\/p>\n

According to parliament\u2019s Portfolio Committee on Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, domestic workers are among the most vulnerable occupational groups of people in society.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany domestic workers have to face exploitative working conditions, disrespectful treatment, low wages, long hours and few employment benefits.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe work that is performed by domestic workers is often undervalued because it takes place in the home,\u201d said Ncube-Ndaba.<\/p>\n

Research from the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice & Dignity Group shows that R15 an hour<\/a><\/strong> is also simply not enough to feed a family of four with nutritional food they need to live.<\/p>\n

The group said that the cost of feeding a family of four in South Africa ranges from R1,276 per month for core foods, to R2,474 per month for a basic nutritionally complete basket of food.<\/p>\n

With bigger families, which is often commonplace in South Africa, these prices can increase to as much as R4,236 per month for a family of seven.<\/p>\n

As of January 2020<\/a><\/strong>, a domestic worker who works 8 hours a day, 22 days a month will earn R2,740 under the new national minimum wage – this would still leave the worker R1,749 in the red, after basic food costs and the bare minimum living needs.<\/p>\n

This gets worse for domestic workers who earn exempted rates (10% less than NMW) or who have less work – something that is becoming a stark reality for many workers, as private households shed jobs in the sector.<\/p>\n

StatsSA’s latest data shows that 16,000 domestic workers lost their jobs in 2019, though the country still employs about 1 million workers.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In the group\u2019s working scenarios, PEJD\u2019s data shows that a domestic worker who is paid at least R4,500 a month<\/strong> would at least be left with a surplus after non-negotiable expenses like food, transport and electricity were paid off.<\/p>\n

At R4,500 a month, in the working scenario (22 days, 8 hours a day), domestic workers would be paid R26 an hour<\/strong> (R205 a day) \u2013 R5.43 more than the new minimum wage.<\/p>\n

\n

Read: This is South Africa\u2019s new minimum wage<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The minister of labour, Thulas Nxesi, has announced that South Africa will have a new minimum wage of R20.76 as of 1 March 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":336535,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-374906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374906"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":374950,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374906\/revisions\/374950"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}