The government have published a bill for comment, the Employment Service Bill. The Bill is available at this link.
In the bill the government proposes to regulate the employment of foreign nationals and includes some of the following recommendations:
- an employer must confirm that there are no suitable South African citizens that can be employed in that position, prior to recruiting a foreign national
- requiring that an employer must prepare a skills transfer plan in respect of any position in which a foreign national is employed
- the identification of certain sectors and target setting for South African citizens within these sectors;
While we recognize that unemployment is a crisis in our country, we strongly believe this is not the way to go. It once again emphasizes a belief that government have that central planning works despite international evidence to the contrary (or even the failures evident during through the Covid disaster management process).
Hopefully common sense will prevail.