{"id":823768,"date":"2025-05-12T13:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-12T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=823768"},"modified":"2025-05-12T13:36:49","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T11:36:49","slug":"eskoms-cost-per-employee-increased-from-r38000-in-1990-to-r913000-in-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/823768\/eskoms-cost-per-employee-increased-from-r38000-in-1990-to-r913000-in-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Eskom’s cost per employee increased from R38,000 in 1990 to R913,000 in 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Eskom\u2019s cost per employee, which is a strong indicator of average salaries, increased from R38,000 in 1990 to R913,000 in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These rapidly escalating employee costs had a direct impact on electricity prices in South Africa, which increased by 190% since 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the turn of the century, South Africa had cheap and abundant electricity, which enabled heavy industry to thrive in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eskom was a well-run company and even won the Power Company of the Year award in the Financial Times’ annual Global Energy Awards in 2000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, mismanagement, corruption, cadre deployment, and strategic blunders ultimately led to the demise of the once-brilliant power utility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the last sixteen years, Eskom\u2019s financial and operational performance has declined significantly, and it is now generating less electricity than it did in 2008.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is particularly concerning is that Eskom is spending far more money, even though it generates less electricity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the problems is its bloated workforce. A World Bank policy research paper found that Eskom has too many employees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The researchers found that in 2014, South Africa\u2019s power utility had the largest workforce out of the 39 sub-Saharan African countries at 41,787.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The World Bank estimated that Eskom required a workforce of only 14,244 people to serve its customers. It proposed one employee for every 413 electricity customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eskom was, therefore, 66% overstaffed. The only other countries with staff levels higher than optimum were Zimbabwe (67%) and Zambia (71%).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem started in the early 2000s. The company increased its workforce from 29,359 in 2002 to 48,628 in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite this significant increase in employee numbers, there was no corresponding increase in power generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another problem is that, despite Eskom\u2019s large number of employees, it has a lack of skills within the company. This suggests that Eskom have employed the wrong personnel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eskom\u2019s cost per employee increased from R38,000 in 1990 to R913,000 in 2024<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Efficient Group chief economist Dawie Roodt said many state-owned enterprises, including Eskom, are poorly run and are collapsing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2023, Roodt said that Eskom was essentially bankrupt. \u201cIt has been operationally and financially run into the ground,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said around 40,000 people work at Eskom and enjoy inflated salaries, which put strain on the power utility\u2019s finances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLast year, Eskom employees received a 7% increase. It is irresponsible. These workers are already overpaid,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BusinessTech calculated the average cost per employee at Eskom over the past 35 years, revealing a rapid escalation in the money spent on employees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1990, the average cost per employee was R38,000. In 2024, the cost ballooned to R913,000, a 976% increase over 34 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The chart below shows Eskom\u2019s cost per employee between 1990 and 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eskom\u2019s cost per employee, which is a strong indicator of average salaries, increased from R38,000 in 1990 to R913,000 in 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":793330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9874],"tags":[1459,1164],"class_list":["post-823768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-dawie-roodt","tag-eskom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823768","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=823768"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":823771,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823768\/revisions\/823771"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/793330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}