The Department of Employment and Labour has gazetted the National Minimum Wage Commission’s recommendation that bottom-line pay for workers in South Africa be hiked by CPI+1.5% in 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The recommendation was published on Wedensday (10 December) and then subsequently withdrawn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The recommendation was then republished following the gazetting of the commission’s report, unchanged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The commission makes its recommendation as part of consultations and deliberations on the National Minimum Wage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It publishes its recommendation and invites the public to give input, and then submits it to the Department of Employment and Labour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The department then considers it and announces the changes early in the new year for implementation from March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hikes in the NMW are often welcomed by workers and labour unions, while employers and businesses are less enthused, typically pointing to increased operational costs in what is already a difficult economic environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Various stakeholders, including unions, have raised concerns about the NMW, noting that the rates are often not enforced, while simultaneously discouraging employment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is particularly true in more informal-leaning sectors like domestic work, where private households often shirk their NMW obligations or cease employment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other factors that often crop up are employers cutting work hours to remain within the legislated per-hour rate, without having to actually pay more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The commission said its recommendation forms part of its mandate to protect vulnerable workers by legislating a fair wage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It not only promotes a decent standard of living but also ensures that it does not undermine the long\u2011term viability of businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This recommendation follows an exhaustive annual review process that considers research conducted on the impact of the national minimum wage, public input, input from economic and industry experts, and extensive deliberations among the commissioners,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The National Minimum Wage is the lowest remuneration rate that employers are obligated and legally permitted to pay their employees for each ordinary hour worked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is illegal for employers to pay their employees less than the minimum threshold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The current legislated minimum wage is set to R28.79 per hour, which affects approximately 5.5 million workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With CPI on track to average around 3.5% in 2025, the National Minimum Wage could increase by about 5% to reach R30.23 in 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the commission said it is important to note that the rate of inflation that will be implemented will be the inflation rate six weeks prior to the 1st of March<\/strong>, which is the date that the new minimum wage comes into effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This means that the projected rate, calculated by BusinessTech, is just an estimation and could be different by the time the official changes are announced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The recommendation is open for public comment until 12 January 2026<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This article has been updated to reflect that the Department of Employment and Labour withdrew and then republished the unchanged recommendation after it was officially gazetted.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The National Minimum Wage Commission has recommended that bottom-line pay for workers in South Africa be hiked by a little over headline CPI next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":834669,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[4444,18560],"class_list":["post-846048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-department-of-labour","tag-national-minimum-wage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846048","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=846048"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846048\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":846193,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846048\/revisions\/846193"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/834669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=846048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=846048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=846048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}