We are currently facing a difficult situation with regards to the submission of claims for any normal UIF benefits (such as unemployment, maternity, illness etc.). Although claims can be submitted online, the approval of these claims is largely dependent on whether the Department of Labour has correct and updated employment history of the individual claiming
How this process works is that Department of Labour receive the declarations (not EMP201s) from the employer every month (by the 6th of the month for the previous month). The Department of Labour then update their systems accordingly to reflect any new employees, changes in UIF payments, credit history and termination records. This information creates an employment history for the employee which is important for the allocation of credits and the ability to claim.
Where employers have not been submitting the declarations, the employment history is not updated, the employee may not show any credits and their claim is rejected. There are also instances where, despite declarations being submitted, employees’ history is not being reflected or rendering on the Department of Labour database.
In the past this was remedied by the submission of the UI-19 and the salary schedule by the employee to the Department of Labour. The Department of Labour would then manually capture the employment history and termination record which would then allow the claim to go through.
The Department of Labour have now advised that they will no longer be manually processing the UI-19s or salary schedules.
Way forward:
1) Declarations have not been submitted
It is important that declarations are submitted to [email protected] (in the correct format) or via uFiling for the last four years or if employed for a lessor time then for that time.
2) Declarations have been submitted and employee needs to claim for Unemployment Benefits
If employees wish to go submit a claim very soon after their last day of employment, they will either:
- need to wait for the Department of Labour to process the normal declaration file; or
- you as the employer will need to update the declaration manually on uFiling; or
- the employee must wait for the Department of Labour to update their systems via the normal declarations process.
To ensure your employees who are terminated can claim unemployment and receive full benefits please proceed to update their declarations via the link: https://www.ufiling.co.za/uif/