{"id":848495,"date":"2026-01-21T16:00:22","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T14:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=848495"},"modified":"2026-01-21T16:00:30","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T14:00:30","slug":"another-blow-for-domestic-workers-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/848495\/another-blow-for-domestic-workers-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Another blow for domestic workers in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Domestic workers have recorded a reduced increase in pay in the final months of 2025, compounding the significant challenges they have faced over the last few years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stats SA<\/a> recently published its latest inflation statistics for December 2025, which included results from the quarterly survey of housing rents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While 2025 saw a 21-year low average inflation of 3.2%, December still saw inflation rise to 3.6% from 3.5% in November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The quarterly survey of housing rents showed that the domestic workers saw their pay increase by an annual 3.8% in December, which was lower than the 4.1% rise recorded at the end of 2024. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, when looking at the real increases, which also account for inflation, domestic workers only recorded a 0.4% increase in December 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given that December 2024 inflation was 3.0%, domestic workers recorded a 1.1% real increase at the end of 2024. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While December 2025 will still see real increases for domestic workers, they are still incredibly open to abuse and are largely informal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

SweepSouth’s domestic worker survey showed that these employees are not getting paid in line with the National Minimum Wage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, many administrative processes and protections for domestic workers, such as registering with the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF), are not being carried out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sector has also been hit by employers either emigrating or semi-emigrating, leaving many workers without work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tracking data over the last five years, the number of domestic worker positions has not exceeded 880,000 in almost 4 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This indicates a permanent loss of roughly 150,000 domestic worker jobs in the country since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Increase on the cards<\/h2>\n\n\n
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\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Regarding future pay increases, the Department of Employment and Labour has recently gazetted the National Minimum Wage Commission\u2019s recommendation to raise the bottom line for workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The commission’s recommendation would see the National Minimum Wage<\/a> increase by CPI+1.5% in 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The increases, which were open for public comment until 12 January 2026, will come into effect in March 2026. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Generally, workers and labour unions often welcome hikes in the NMW, while employers and businesses are less enthused, given the increased operational costs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With CPI averaging around 3.2% in 2025, the National Minimum Wage could increase by around 4.7% to reach R30.14 per hour from its current level of R28.79 per hour. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, the commission noted that the inflation rate to be used will be the rate six weeks before the 1st of March. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While domestic workers often face financial pressures, data shows they are significantly improving their relationship with debt. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Eighty20<\/a>\u2019s data, by Q4 2021, the Mothers of the Nation segment had the highest default rate among all groups, at around 75%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Mothers of the Nation are low-income, female grant recipients, most of whom are unemployed or underemployed. Domestic workers essentially represent it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eighty20\u2019s data reflected credit-active individuals with at least one loan in default (or with three or more months of arrears).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, the Mothers of the Nation noted their default levels dropped dramatically over four years, reaching just over 40% in Q3 2025. This is lower than the middle class. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the group\u2019s latest report shows that default levels among this segment have decreased significantly, reaching just over 40% in Q3 2025 \u2013 lower than the default rate among the middle class.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Source: Eighty20’s latest Credit Stress Report<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Domestic workers have seen a reduction in their pay increases in December 2025, adding to the pain for the sector. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":758899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[17130,17573,24569,1809],"class_list":["post-848495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-department-of-employment-and-labour","tag-eighty20","tag-nmw","tag-stats-sa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848495","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=848495"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":848509,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848495\/revisions\/848509"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/758899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}