Minimum wages not being paid

29 June 2022 – Even though salaries should have witnessed an increase over the past year, a large number of South African employees are not receiving their minimum wage basics. BusinessTech showed that in the first quarter of 2020, companies in South Africa put roughly 36% of all workers below the national minimum wage. This number has not
improved in the year of 2021.
In the Quarterly Employment Survey (QES) of Statistics South Africa, “the average monthly earnings paid to employees in the formal non-agricultural sector decreased by 1.4% from R23,828 in November 2021 to R23,502 in February 2022”.
The agricultural sector was proved to have the biggest share of under-national minimum wage earners. Not to mention that “Construction, Wholesale and Retail Trade, and Domestic Work, all had rates of violation close to 45%, and these remained relatively unchanged. Levels of violation appeared to have also risen in Finance, and Transport.”
Therefore, new discussions are taking place in order to improve the situation for 2023. The decisions will take into account the rising fuel prices as well as the increasing food costs. The National Minimum Wage Commission takes various factors into consideration when it comes to adjusting the wages of the country. It first focuses on the inflation rate and the cost of living. It then looks at the gross domestic product, the wage levels as well as the productivity.
It also evaluates the employers’ capacity to operate enterprises in the country. And it finally assesses the impact of the minimum wages on employment. All these four elements play an important role in this decision making process.
In 2018, a National Minimum Wage Act demonstrated the protection of low income employees and worked on diminishing inequalities in wages across the labour market.
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