Times Of Swaziland: 18 947 EMPLOYEES NOW ON UNPAID LAYOFFS

18 947 EMPLOYEES NOW ON UNPAID LAYOFFS
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Stanley Khumalo on 31/07/2020 10:11:00


MANZINI – In the past four- and-a-half months, 18 947 employees have been
placed on unpaid leave.
This is a cumulative figure as of July 24, 2020. This figure reflects an
increment of 4 899 employees from the 14 048 workers who were reported by the
Labour Commissioner, Mthunzi Shabangu, in May. According to Shabangu, 159
companies have so far invoked Section 5 (a) of the Guidelines on Employment
Contingency Measures in Response to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic, General
Notice No. 22 of 2020, by filing applications for temporary layoffs of their
workers.
Shabangu said it must be noted that this was a cumulative figure, which included
those industries which had since opened in the gradual relaxation of the partial
lockdown and recalled their employees back to work. Moreover, he said most of
the employers who were now filing applications for layoffs were those who were
seeking retrospective approval of their layoffs because they wanted to apply for
compensatory relief on behalf of their employees from the Unpaid Layoffs Relief
Fund.
He said: “In terms of the guidelines for the fund, an employer who applies for
compensatory relief on behalf of her employees must be in possession of a letter
of approval of the layoffs issued by the office of the commissioner of
labour.” Shabangu said 77 companies that had sought unpaid layoffs were from
the Hhohho Region; 62 were from the Manzini Region; 10 were from the Lubombo
Region and 10 were from the Shiselweni Region. He said of the 159 companies, 118
of them had since had their applications approved after due processes. This,
according to Shabangu, resulted in the total of 18 947 employees being affected
by the unpaid layoffs.