Deputy Minister Phumzile Mgcina: Dept of Employment and Labour Budget Vote 31

Department of Employment and Labour Budget Vote 31 speech, Deputy Minister Phumzile Mgcina  

Protocol
• Honourable Speaker 
• Ministers and Deputy Ministers present
• Members of the House
• The Director-General and Senior Managers of the Department of 
Employment and Labour, and its entities
• Ladies and gentlemen
It is my honor and pleasure to be afforded an opportunity to add on what 
the Minister of Employment and Labour presented to this House. I have 
joined a moving train and hope to make a contribution in improving the 
working and living conditions of the workers of our country and also 
improve relations between employers and their employees.
2 | P a g e
The Minister, made reference to the “Unemployment in the context of 
our country as structural, deep-seated systemic and stubborn” and 
referred to Stats SA Quarter 4 4 figures that I don’t have to repeat and 
the partnerships that we are forging in our quest to reducing these high 
unemployment levels. 
The Department has a number of entities that are established in terms 
of various laws and work collaboratively to contribute to employment 
entry, employment retention, employment safety, employment security, 
employment cushioning.
It is within this context that we have the Public Employment Services 
that we established to assist work seekers and companies to adjust to 
changing labour market trends through the following interventions: 
- Registration of work seekers and work opportunities and 
facilitating placement after performing matching and counseling 
services. This work is done through the 126 Labour Centres, the 
youth centres, the 440 visiting points that we access through our 
mobile units and cars and our online systems.
- Retension of employment through Productivity promotion and 
Turn Around Solutions to ailing companies through our 
Productivity South Africa to improve work place relations and 
change.
- Rolling out special employment programs for persons with 
disabilities in our quest not to leave anyone behind. We do this 
through the 13 Supported Employment Enterprises that we have 
in 08 of the Nine Provinces. We are currently exploring the 
3
establishment of one more in Mpumalanga. These SEEs employ 
youth, men and women of different races with various disabilities 
and produce very good quality furniture, linen and steel products. 
We also subsidize 09 National organisations that promote the 
employment of people with disabilities.
- We provide funding through the Unemployment Insurance Fund, 
Labour Activation Program, to support scheme that places people 
in employment.
- We have established special Rehabilitation and re-integration 
programs for people injured at work to continues with their lively 
hood under the Compensation Fund.
- We assist companies in distress through the UIF/CCMA and 
Productivity SA to minimize levels of retrenchments.
- We set minimum standards and basic condition of employment 
through the Ministerial determinations to protect workers involved 
in public and private employment programs.
- We are active players in the growth of this country through 
massive investments that we make on the UIF and Compensation 
Fund reserves to employment creation projects overseen by the 
Public Investment Cooperation.
- We are working with the Presidency in the Presidential Youth 
Employment Initiative, to coordinate public employment programs 
and to search for innovative solutions that can bring about tangible 
changes in this area. And finally
4 | P a g e
- We are working on policies such as the National Labour Migration, 
the National Employment Policy, Reviewing our laws to 
accommodate the Platform Workers, Small Business and 4 IR.
Honorable members, all these interventions require all of us and DEL 
will not succeed without the support of the labour, community and 
employers.
I thank you