Unemployment due to retrenchment or an unexpected dismissal, and maternity, parental and illness leave can add to the stress of the person who needs to take the time off. Taking care of a baby or attempting to recover from an illness is taxing enough, and the burden of financial insecurity just adds fuel to the mental health fire.
This is where the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) comes in. Or, at least, where it’s intended to. UIF is a labour department service created to give temporary relief to workers who are unemployed or unable to work due to maternity, parental/adoption and illness leave.
Each month, employers take 1% of the employee’s salary and contribute the same amount to the fund. This accumulates and allows the employee to have a soft landing should they find themselves unable to work or unexpectedly without a job.
However, while UIF is intended to help fill financial gaps, over the years those who have attempted to claim have had mixed experiences. Some have had a seamless experience while others have found it almost impossible to get the money owed to them.
Ashton Jones, a 35-year-old attorney, had a negative experience when claiming on UIF. She has claimed UIF aid only for maternity leave: for her son born in 2020, which took a total of 18 months from the time of application to receive payment, and now she for payment after the birth of her second son in August 2023.
Before her first application, Jones was warned that the UIF claims process could be slow and tedious and was advised that she should save funds for her maternity leave months in advance in case this was her experience. “I also don’t think people realise how little you get from UIF in comparison to your full salary. But regardless of what the amount is, it’s obviously still money that has been deducted from your payslip for years and years.”
Jones decided to embark on the process herself, though many agencies and third-party organisations offer a paid service to assist in claiming. “I decided to do everything myself, saying it would be easily available online, which it seemed to be at first glance. You’re asked to submit documents via a secure link, and you would do that and not receive acknowledgment or any communication at all. When you follow up, that secure link doesn’t work any more: ‘Please email the documents to this email address instead.’ And then you wait. And then you follow up again, and they tell you they have received your documents but need further documents.”
The frustrating process can take months, with the waiting period between submitting documents and receiving feedback taking up to 21 working days, according to the labour department. If documents aren’t up to scratch or there is missing information. the application process takes longer. “It’s not user friendly in the sense that you can go to one place, get a step-by-step process, all the documents that you need that you can submit once and know that everything’s in order,” says Jones.
Eventually, a year and a half after giving birth, Jones was paid a lump sum for the four months she was not working.
Others have had worse experiences. Kgomotso Seabe, 32, went to the service after being retrenched unexpectedly.
“I applied for UIF because I [was] retrenched. I dreaded going to the labour office, then I found out you can apply for your UIF online. My previous employer gave me all the documents I needed ... But I needed my documents from the employer before that because UIF is supposed to pay you out from your last four years of contributions. I was sent from pillar to post and emailed additional documents over the span of six months. I was unemployed for seven months and I never got my payout,” Seabe says.
The implications of not getting payment when you really need it can be huge. For Seabe, it took a toll on her mental health.
“The experience of being unemployed for starters is incredibly tough, but now being without resources is like sending you straight into a depression. I suffered from bad anxiety and depression for a very long time. I have only just come out of a two-year-long depression.
“You cannot do anything on your own. And as someone who is very independent, it was difficult. I am lucky enough to have an incredible support system that carried me through this season. I kept on imagining people who don’t have resources to keep calling the UIF call centre to follow up on their money, to have people who can pay rent for them, and put food in their fridge. It’s sickening and unacceptable.”
Jones, who is still trying to claim UIF for her second maternity leave, which ended in December 2023, recognises the implications of not being able to rely on the UIF payout.
“Having a child in today’s economy is particularly expensive, I think compared with when my parents had children. So, as it was, my husband and I even had to consider if we could afford a second child. When we decided that we could make it work, we saved what we could in terms of being able to cover essentials for those four months, but that meant a lot of saving during my pregnancy to accumulate those savings.
“We don’t have any savings now because we’ve had to use everything just to cover the pregnancy, birth experience and those four months that I was unpaid. Financial stress is huge on people generally. When you know that you’ve paid money to a fund with the sole purpose being to refund you in those times when you are not employed, and you just can’t get the money from them, it’s incredibly frustrating.”
So, where does the problem lie? Jones says that there is a lack of transparency in terms of the website not being user-friendly and giving clear instructions on which documents you need and how to submit them. “You have an online system that is completely ineffective, so you are then resubmitting everything, duplicating the number of files and the number of copies in your application on their system.
“They should also be able to process it in the time frame that they give you. Everyone in SA is accustomed to governmental departments not being fast, but if you are meant to get paid within three months of applying, you should in fact get paid during that time frame. I think it’s the indefinite window that [makes] a lot of people ... [unwilling] to even entertain [the process], and so they end up not applying at all.”
Seabe concurs but takes it a step further, implying that the lack of transparency may be intentional. “I think that there is misinformation within the organisation; when you are at the end of the process, and you’re supposed to get your payout, they tell you a payout is on hold for some reason or another.
“It honestly feels like a web of lies and corruption. I’ve heard too many stories of people never receiving their UIF payouts — and that’s unacceptable and a clear example of how our government continues to fail us.”
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