The Labour Minister has warned that 75,000 people in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng faced being laid off or retrenched after the week-long violence that flared through those two provinces earlier this month.
Minister Thulas Nxesi said that workers at risk would be helped through benefits from the Unemployment Insurance Fund.
He said that this would include workers who did not qualify in terms of the UIF Act. Nxesi said that a special directive was being prepared, to avoid any breach of the law.
The minister said that 75,000 jobs were on the line in the wake of the deadly carnage in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.
“This may lead to temporary lay-offs from work or an outright retrenchment,” Nxesi said.
His department, together with commerce, industry and small business, was counting the cost of a week of violence and distraction and working on ways to help some.
“The Unemployment Insurance Fund is a basket of benefits that can serve as an intervention mechanism to support the affected workers and companies,” he said.
Nxesi could not provide further details, which he said would be contained in a special directive that his department was working on urgently.
The directive would spell out where the payments would replace a portion of lost income, or a flat rate across the board, and other details.
Nxesi said that money would be paid directly into people’s bank accounts to prevent possible fraud.
“It will not be a free for all. The criteria to determine who qualifies is going to be stringent and payment will be based on the resources available,” the minister said.
-EWN
In other news – SO SAD: Limpopo woman kidnapped while looking for lift at Sasol garage, gang raped for 19 days & dumped in Mpumalanga
A woman is traumatized after she was kidnapped and repeatedly raped over 19 days. The woman said her horrific ordeal started on 4 July, when she got a lift from three men she met at a filling station in Tzaneen, Limpopo.
She said she thought they would drop her off near her house but they kidnapped her and turned her into a s.e.x slave. The 26-year-old farmworker said she had earlier been shopping at Tzaneen Mall. Learn More