SA is suffering the blight of almost 10-million people unemployed. There is an unfortunate lack of ability from the department of labour to police labour legislation. Staffing expenses contribute to more than 70% of expenditure in small business. One of the illegal ways of reducing these overheads is to break the labour legislation and employ staff at lower wages than the statutory minimums and for longer hours than the statutory maximums. Employers have realised that there is an abundance of illegal foreign labour in SA who will accept positions at much lower wages and on much more onerous terms and conditions. This has created a situation in which locals are unable to compete. The department of labour has fewer than 1,700 inspectors to investigate illegal employment. Local workers have filed numerous complaints to the police and the department, but the government is unable to tackle this after the foreigners have come through our borders. This problem is growing rapidly and is cre...
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