Minister Nomakhosazana Meth: Employment and Labour Dept Budget Vote 2025/26

Honourable Chairperson
Ministers and Deputy Ministers present Honourable Members
The Acting Director-General and Senior Managers of the Department of Employment and Labour, and its Entities
Distinguished Guests 
Fellow South Africans 

Honourable Chairperson,

We present an abridged version of Budget Vote 31 speech as a moral reckoning with the crisis of unemployment that continues to grip our country. It is a policy instrument for reform and an institutional roadmap for a Department that must do more, with less, for more people.

We meet amid the daily struggles of millions of South Africans, who rise each morning with hope, but without work. Young people who possess qualifications yet lack opportunity. Families who stretch every rand to meet basic needs. Workers  who labour without adequate protection, voice, or dignity.

We confront the hard truth of unemployment and inequality which calls for us to account plainly and directly for where we stand.

South Africa is not immune to global geopolitical instability. One of the more immediate risks lies in trade relations especially with the United States, where uncertainty surrounds our continued participation in the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). Should access to preferential trade be restricted, the impact would be felt deeply across key labour-intensive sectors including steel, automotive manufacturing, textiles, and agri-business. These sectors employ tens of thousands of workers, many of whom are women, youth, and from rural communities.

Thus, the importance of a stable, equitable, and fair domestic labour market becomes even more critical. Labour laws remain a central defence, ensuring decent work conditions, protecting vulnerable workers, and supporting business continuity amid uncertainty.

Emerging from a history in which the majority were denied dignity, decent work, and protection in the workplace, the labour laws of this country have undergone significant transformation.

They are now structured to create a fair, dynamic, and harmonised labour market that supports inclusive growth and economic transformation. These laws respond to evolving work arrangements, emerging technologies, and persistent inequalities.

During the 2024/25 financial year, the Department promulgated three regulations (explosives, physical agents and noise exposure). Further, we published the construction regulations for public comments. These seek to align occupational health and safety laws with the Constitution, promoting fair labour practices, and ensures coherence with related statutes such as the Labour Relations Act and the Mine Health and Safety Act.

The National Minimum Wage (NMW) has raised income levels for many low-wage workers, including domestic workers, farmworkers, women, and youth. It has supported household livelihoods and local economic activity.

The Department is advancing the National Labour Migration Policy and the Employment Services Amendment Bill. These instruments regulate access to employment in a fair, transparent, and rights-based manner. The approach promotes local participation while observing international obligations.

I am pleased to confirm, Honourable Chairperson, that the National Labour Migration Policy has been approved by Cabinet. The Employment Services Amendment Bill (ESAB) was also approved by Cabinet for submission to Parliament. This provides a legal framework to regulate the employment of foreign nationals and addresses misuse by labour brokers and the exploitation of undocumented workers.

Honourable Chairperson,

Structural inequality in the workplace remains evident in employment equity data. Despite a robust legal framework, transformation has progressed slowly since the dawn of democracy.

The recently published 24th Commission for Employment Equity Annual Report indicates:

• 62% of top management positions are occupied by white South Africans.
• Women hold 26.9% of top management and 37.7% of senior management positions.
• Persons with disabilities only make up 1.2% of the workforce.

These figures show continued exclusion of many qualified South Africans from full economic participation. Addressing this is essential to building equity and promoting social and economic development.

The Department continues to invest in new labour market research to ensure labour market policy is aligned with real-world developments.

In 2025/26, research focus will be on:

• The effects of the platform economy, including gig work, on employment patterns and worker protection.
• The application of equal pay for work of equal value, which remains a challenge in various sectors.
• The use and outcomes of Employment Equity tools, including codes of good practice and sectoral guidelines.
• Conditions of decent work in the hospitality sector, where informality and vulnerability remain common.
• The ‘dominance’ of the Higher Education and training sector by foreign nationals
• Contributions of demand-led sectors and the informal sector to job creation.

Honourable Chairperson,

This Budget is aligned with the national priorities outlined in the Medium-Term Development Plan (MTDP) 2024–2029 under the Government of National Unity (GNU).

Every line item in this Budget has been crafted to reflect the strategic imperatives of the 7th Administration, as led by His Excellency President Cyril Ramaphosa — with a focus on ensuring labour market interventions contribute directly to tangible social and economic outcomes.

One of the Department’s critical instruments to achieve this is the National Employment Policy, which is at advanced stages. This policy sets out a coordinating framework to align various policy instruments that promote employment growth. The NEP calls for a paradigm shift toward better policy coordination that enhances firm productivity and job absorption capacity, supported by macroeconomic, industrial, and skills development policies.

It promotes stronger Public Employment Programmes (PEPs) by supporting both market and non-market forms of employment, to convert socially necessary but unpaid work into viable earning and learning opportunities, upholding the principle that everyone who wants to work should have the opportunity to do so.

Working with Private Sector through the Gov-Bus platform we are intensifying coordination and collaboration for jobs drive, including creating opportunities for those in need for ‘on the job’ training or experiential training.

We will be accelerating the vital work of the National Pathway Management Network (NPMN) — coordinated in the Presidency and operationally managed by Harambee. Notably, the SA Youth platform, which forms part of this network, has registered over 5 million young people and placed 1.57 million into earning opportunities — 70% of whom are women. These are not mere statistics. They reflect concrete outcomes — households supported, futures stabilised, and resilience built.

Aligned with our Five-Year Strategic Plan and the 2025/26 Annual Performance Plan, the Department has set a target of creating 2 million jobs by 2030 through an integrated employment agenda.

Unemployment in South Africa is a crisis. As of the first quarter of 2025, the official unemployment rate stood at 32.9%, with youth unemployment at an alarming 62.4%. These figures speak to the urgency of placing employment at the heart of national development.

We are building a whole-of-government, whole-of-society approach to employment — one that is inclusive, strategic, and accountable. No job creation effort, whether in infrastructure, public works, industrial policy, or the social economy, should exist in isolation. The Department will ensure all efforts are connected and directed toward common outcomes — particularly for youth, women, persons with disabilities, and the long-term unemployed.

The Department plays a central role in shaping the labour market through regulation, social protection, job placement, and institutional development.

In a constrained fiscal environment, we are guided by realism, though not deterred by limited resources. Instead, we are responding with innovation through reprioritisation, institutional redesign, and administrative reform.

For the 2025/26 financial year, the Department of Employment and Labour has been allocated R4.153 billion, distributed as follows:

• R1.598 billion for Compensation of Employees — enabling core service delivery by funding inspectors, career counsellors, client services staff, and provincial managers.
• R694.789 million for Goods and Services — covering critical operations, ICT tools, and stakeholder engagements that drive daily functionality.
• R1.738 billion for Transfers and Subsidies — supporting key partnerships with the CCMA, Productivity SA, Nedlac, and civil society actors involved in employment activation.
• R121.033 million for Capital Assets — financing digital infrastructure upgrades and modernisation of labour centres and satellite offices.

Major social protection interventions will be delivered through the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) and Compensation Fund (CF).

In 2025/26, the UIF will manage R38.4 billion, with R19.02 billion for direct benefits. Over R10.98 billion is allocated to Labour Activation Programmes (LAPs), targeting 240,000 placements this year and 690,000 over the medium term, half of which are reserved for youth, women, and persons with disabilities. An additional R1.4 billion is allocated to the TERS scheme to protect jobs in distressed companies, while R55 million will fund the Business Turnaround Programme to assist 80 companies and save 3,750 jobs.

To boost efficiency, R1.13 billion is committed to digital transformation, including biometric verification and integrated claims systems. Seventeen mobile buses will extend UIF access to less serviced areas.

The Compensation Fund is allocated R1. 6 billion (pensioners and injured workers), R5 billion for medical claims, and R1.85 billion for capacity building — supporting digitisation, medical staffing in provinces, and outreach to vulnerable workers.

In strengthening the institutional capacity, as of mid-June 2025, over 79% of funded vacancies have been advertised, and we aim to reduce the vacancy rate to 12% by year-end. The focus is on posts critical to service delivery: Labour Centre Operations Heads, Inspectors, Career Counsellors, and frontline staff.

In parallel, we are modernising the Department’s digital ecosystem:

• Bandwidth upgrades have been completed at 16 priority sites.
• New data centre and ICT infrastructure are being rolled out to support digital transformation at the UIF and CF.
• The Department is shifting toward cloud-based architecture and preparing for digital-first service delivery.

Honourable Chairperson, Honourable Members,

Budget Vote 31 is a policy stance affirming that, even under fiscal strain, we will honour our duty to deliver public value with urgency, clarity, and measurable outcomes.

Let us be remembered not for the challenges we inherited, but for the solutions we executed. This Budget reflects a state that is working visibly, efficiently, and ethically for its people.

I present this Budget Vote 31 to this House. Let us use it as a lever of delivery, inclusion, and renewal. Let us move forward with purpose, with unity, and with resolve to leave no worker behind.

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