{"id":748374,"date":"2024-02-02T19:01:20","date_gmt":"2024-02-02T17:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=748374"},"modified":"2024-02-02T19:02:23","modified_gmt":"2024-02-02T17:02:23","slug":"new-minimum-wage-for-south-africans-heres-how-much-domestic-workers-should-be-paid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/748374\/new-minimum-wage-for-south-africans-heres-how-much-domestic-workers-should-be-paid\/","title":{"rendered":"New minimum wage for South Africa &#8211; here\u2019s how much domestic workers should be paid"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Department of Employment and Labour Minister Thulas Mxesi has gazetted a large increase to South Africa&#8217;s minimum wage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Effective 1 March 2024, the minimum wage will increase from R25.42 per hour to R27.58. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This marks an 8.5% increase &#8211; far ahead of the latest inflation data, with CPI averaging 6.0% in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-businesstech wp-block-embed-businesstech\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"ryEHGZZIR5\"><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/747020\/food-price-relief-coming-for-south-africa\/\">Food price relief coming for South Africa<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;Food price relief coming for South Africa&#8221; &#8212; BusinessTech\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/747020\/food-price-relief-coming-for-south-africa\/embed\/#?secret=2BkuHnEmxe#?secret=ryEHGZZIR5\" data-secret=\"ryEHGZZIR5\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The minimum wage for <strong>domestic workers and farm workers will also be raised to R27.58.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Workers employed in the expanded public sector programme will be entitled to a minimum wage of R15.16 per hour. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>When calculated at 8 hours per day, the monthly wage for domestic workers (160 hours a month) should increase from around\u00a0R4,100\u00a0to just over R4,400 &#8211; an increase of R300. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Trouble for domestic workers <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The above-inflation increase in the minimum wage for domestic workers comes at a time when those who can employ them are struggling financially. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business-opinion\/744725\/trouble-for-domestic-workers-in-south-africa-in-2024\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Data from Eight20<\/a> showed that middle-class households have a credit-instalments-to-monthly-income ratio of 73%, while heavy-hitters (the wealthiest 5% of the population) carry a ratio of 61%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This shows that households in South Africa that are most likely to hire a domestic worker have little space in their budgets to take on more costs in 2024, with little relief in the short term amid high interest rates and worsening real wages. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-businesstech wp-block-embed-businesstech\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"oJxWP1UmTI\"><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wealth\/747078\/south-africans-are-poorer-despite-a-jump-in-take-home-pay\/\">South Africans are poorer &#8211; despite a jump in take-home pay<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;South Africans are poorer &#8211; despite a jump in take-home pay&#8221; &#8212; BusinessTech\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wealth\/747078\/south-africans-are-poorer-despite-a-jump-in-take-home-pay\/embed\/#?secret=NMDFE2C8YO#?secret=oJxWP1UmTI\" data-secret=\"oJxWP1UmTI\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite the minimum wage, domestic services platform&nbsp;SweepSouth&nbsp;noted that the average domestic worker earns under R3,000 per month. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Additionally, the group said that thousands of domestic worker jobs were lost in 2023 due to various reasons, such as economic troubles and increased levels of emigration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The number of domestic worker jobs has dropped significantly, quarterly employment data from Stats SA shows. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite historically having 1 million domestic workers employed in the country, this figure took a hit after 250,000 domestic workers lost their jobs in the quarter following the start of the Covid-19 lockdown. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although employment figures recovered in subsequent quarters, it never reached the numbers seen before. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Four years later, the sector is still struggling to get these jobs back, with the latest data showing roughly 150,000 domestic workers still lost to the market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/minimum-wage.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Gazette from the Department of Employment and Labour<\/a> can be found below: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/minimum-wage.pdf\" width=\"100%\" height=\"600\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/748152\/government-makes-big-bee-target-changes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Government makes big BEE target changes<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Department of Employment and Labour has announced an above-inflation increase to the minimum wage in South Africa. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":647511,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[10550,26],"class_list":["post-748374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-domestic-worker","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748374","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\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=748374"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":748398,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748374\/revisions\/748398"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/647511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=748374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=748374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=748374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}