The first round of employment equity (EE) road-shows got underway in Paarl this week. Headed by the Department of Labour’s EE Directorate Unit, the vision for the department, is to undertake a series of national road-shows across the country to create awareness and compliance with the implementation of the Employment Equity Act (EEA).
The road-shows, which will continue this week at the Grand West Casino in Cape Town, will see a day dedicated to the Construction, Manufacturing and Electrical sector, the Wholesale and Retail, and Catering sector, as well as the Finance and Transport sectors, respectfully.
The Department of Labour’s Employment Equity road-show got into full swing in Cape Town today (Wed) with officials giving presentations to hundreds of employers focusing on the status in the construction sector showing that whites still held dominant positions in senior management levels..
Niresh Singh, Deputy Director: Employment Equity Directorate for the Department of Labour, gave an overview of the population dynamics of the province. The coloured population makes up for 51 percent of the workforce and are the most economically active population of the Western Cape.
Coming in second was the African population with 33.9 percent followed by 14.8 percent being the white economically active population. The Indian population was only at 0.3 percent.
The anomaly then, of the white population still dominating key positions across sectors, sounds the alarm for the progression of coloureds and Africans in the province. By definition, being economically active can be categorised as people who are employed and unemployed – but are seeking work and are between the ages 15-64 years.
Furthermore, only 1.4 percent of disabled people are economically active nationally. Its wanting across all sectors in the Western Cape. According to Singh, many of responses given at the road-shows are based on the enquiries received from companies to the department.
“Companies are not doing an analysis of their workforce, not consulting, not preparing and implementing proper EE plans. There are employers who are submitting reports but not doing the preliminary,” he said.
In response, the department is showing companies how to go about doing it. For the 2012 reporting period, 22014 reports were received nationally. Of that 96% were done online. This year’s focus will be on how to successfully report online.
In addition to the new amendments that will come into effect, the department also highlighted the fact that it will be forming a specialised unit that will only look at EE.
In highlighting the good turn-out at the road-show, Teboho Thejane, Chief Director: Provincial Liaison of the Western Cape, noted, “These road shows serves to Educate, empower and create a working relationship between the department and its clients, with the emphasis being on doing things right.”
The 2013 road-shows are targeted at Human Resource executive and practitioners, assigned senior EE managers/transformation managers; EE forum members and trade unions among others.
The EE workshops will conclude on September 6 in Gauteng Province.
Meanwhile, the EE reporting period start 1 September 2013. Manual submission closes on the 1st October 2013 and Online submission closes on the 15 January 2014.