At a press conference in Pretoria on Tuesday, Minister of Employment and Labour Thulas Nxesi said too many companies are not meeting their equity targets.

“Those who do not comply must face the music… they must be punished. We are forced to set the targets ourselves,” he said.

Nxesi said that Section 53 of the Employment Equity Act will be promulgated to target those employers that are simply not complying — something he said is particularly problematic because it’s been more than 20 years since democracy.

Releasing this year’s Employment Equity Report, Nxesi noted that white people still continue to dominate top management positions in all the provinces.

The report combines 30 000 separate company reports, covering 7.4-million employees.

Its main findings were that:

65.5% of top management positions were still occupied by white people, followed by black African people, who took up 15% of management positions.

In agriculture, white people took up 77.5% of senior positions.

Men still occupied 76.5% of the top management positions in government, with 71% of these positions taken up by black Africans. White men occupied 69.9% of these positions in the private sector.

People with disabilities make up only 1.3% of top management.

Women only make up 39% of senior management.

In an attempt to make sure that there are consequences for companies that don’t comply with transformation requirements, Nxesi said the labour department would be increasing the number of inspectors that it has. There was currently one inspector for every 20 workplaces, he said.

“We can’t reach all employers but those who we have been able to reach and they do not comply they will be harshly dealt with,” he said.

Read the report here:

19th CEE-Annual Report by Mail and Guardian on Scribd