Mr. Zuma promised last week at a national gathering of the governing party in Durban that the cabinet would act soon.

But it remains unclear how decisively he can move. His party, the African National Congress, conceded in a report last week that its alliance remained divided over what should be done. Eight months ago, Mr. Zuma proposed a wage subsidy to encourage the hiring of young, inexperienced workers. But it ran into vociferous opposition from Cosatu, the two-million-member trade union federation that is part of the governing alliance, which contended that it would displace established workers. The plan has stalled.

While officials wrangle, the unemployment crisis festers in places like Newcastle. During the rowdy protests at the factory last month, the police warned that the situation could turn violent, according to Mr. Deetlefs, the bargaining council official. The sheriff withdrew. The factory closed.

But broader resistance from Newcastle factory owners and concerns about large job losses led to a monthlong moratorium on factory shutdowns after 26 were closed nationally. Officials from the government and the bargaining council are now pushing offending factories to come up with plans to pay minimum wage.

The shuttered factory here has since reopened. When the clock strikes five, thousands of black women still pour from the factories here and line up at bus stands for the ride back to their townships. But workers fear the reprieve will not last.

Newcastle’s garment industry is a product of apartheid’s social engineering. The apartheid state sought to keep most blacks from moving to dynamic big cities reserved for whites by offering large subsidies to light industry to locate on the borderlands of rural areas.

The Taiwanese began opening clothing factories here in the 1980s. And since the end of apartheid, entrepreneurs from mainland China have joined them. Some of the more successful Chinese factory owners drive BMWs and Mercedes Benzes, but others operate on a shoestring. All say they must be allowed to pay wages on a lower scale to stay in business.