The jobs bloodbath caused by Covid-19 is expected to go up in 2021. The dispute resolution body the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) is already dealing with 985 large-scale retrenchment notices received from April to December last year.
The coronavirus pandemic has ravaged the economy which lost 2.2-million jobs last year and business expects the country to lose up to 4-million jobs as a result of the pandemic.
“Things are looking worse this year,” said labour analyst Michael Bagraim.
“I think we are going to double the number of 4-million jobs that will be lost and that’s terrible news.”
Bagraim said small businesses had barely survived the lockdown. “What’s been happening is, now that we have come back to work, small businesses are telling me they have to start retrenchments in 2021, because there is no help from the government,” he said.
“The Ters [temporary employer/employee relief] scheme has come to an end, and these businesses have run out of spare cash, they don’t even have money to pay severance payments. The lockdown has destroyed SMMEs completely.”
His analysis of the situation is backed up by statistics from the Commission.
CCMA’s Cameron Morajane told Business Day that from April 1 2020 to December 31 2020 they received 985 large-scale referrals compared with 555 referrals of the matching period in 2019.
He said there had been 39,566 retrenchments to date. While they had managed to save 30,199 jobs, he said another 71,099 workers were likely to be retrenched this year.
National Council of Trade Unions general secretary Narius Moloto said the extended lockdown will lead to further job losses and called on government to manage it better.
Sizwe Pamla, national spokesperson of the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu), said everything was “unpredictable at this point”.
“We went to the fourth quarter of 2020 hoping that we were going to avoid extreme lockdowns, even with the second wave. Unfortunately, we are back to level 3 and face an uncertain future,” said Pamla.
“We are trying to get the [R200bn] loan guarantee scheme back on track for distressed companies and UIF Ters back for workers. There are engagements about tax breaks for the most impacted sectors of the economy. All of these incentives for the private sector are conditional on them not retrenching.”
Pamla said they were exploring avenues to cushion workers from the pandemic, including the pension fund withdrawal scheme, “where workers can withdraw from their pensions while giving employers some reprieve. But the situation is fluid and we need to adapt and negotiate as we go along”.
Federation of Unions of SA (Fedusa) general secretary Riefdah Ajam said they anticipated a “bleak outlook” for 2021, and that workers could expect little respite during the first half of the year as government “is expected to channel its focus on the rollout of the vaccine during this time”. She called for a moratorium on retrenchments, saying workers should not be used as scapegoats for the struggling economy.
SA Federation of Trade Union (Saftu) general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said the key driver of poverty and unemployment in SA was joblessness, and stressed that the poor and the working class had been left – by government - to their “own devices to face grinding poverty and worsening deprivation”.
The government needed to implement a basic income grant, resume the payment of and increase the Ters scheme to “more appropriate levels”, Vavi said.
Employment and labour department spokesperson Musa Zondi said social partners at the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) “are currently exploring ways to provide some assistance” to workers aged over 60, those with co-morbidities, and those working in sectors that have “fallen on hardship”.
Zondi said while employment and labour minister Thulas Nxesi had called on companies to not retrench during the pandemic, it was, however, “not in the power of the minister to place a moratorium on retrenchments”.
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