Domestic Workers Paying The Price Of Labour Laws

South Africa has one of the highest unemployment levels in the world, yet the government continues to enforce labour laws that are presented as compassionate but in practice destroy millions of jobs.

Photo by Gil Ribeiro on Unsplash

Written By: Eustace Davie

Domestic work is one of the largest sources of employment for black women in South Africa. It provides income that sustains households, educates children, and supports extended families. In recent years, however, the number of such jobs has been falling. Statistics South Africa reports that more than one million people were employed as domestic workers in 2019, but by the third quarter of 2024 the figure had dropped to about 854,000 – a decline of nearly 17 per cent. Each lost job strips away the small income that kept food on the table and children in school. This outcome was predicted by the Free Market Foundation (FMF) when the government chose to extend labour laws to domestic workers.

The decisive change came in 2022 when the National Minimum Wage was fully applied to the sector. It now stands at R28.79 per hour. For many households this is unaffordable. A family that might once have employed help for three days a week is forced to reduce to one, or to dispense with help altogether. A woman who might have earned R2,000 a month now earns nothing.

Other labour laws deepen the exclusion. Employing a domestic worker for more than 24 hours a month obliges households to register with the Unemployment Insurance Fund, submit returns, and pay contributions. Following the Mahlangu judgment, households are also made liable under the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act. These measures may be manageable for businesses, but they impose heavy burdens on private households. Faced with such costs and risks, many decide not to employ anyone at all.

At the root of this policy is the single breadwinner fallacy. Unions argue that every job must be paid at a level sufficient to support an entire household. This outdated and sexist belief has been written directly into labour laws, with predictable consequences. Most households rely on several incomes, whether from different family members or from multiple part-time jobs. Domestic workers themselves often sustain livelihoods by working for more than one family. The single breadwinner model ignores this reality and, by making low-wage agreements illegal, shuts millions of South Africans out of any employment at all.

There is a practical way forward. The FMF has proposed the Job Seekers Exemption Certificate (JSEC). Under this proposal, any person unemployed for six months or longer, or any new entrant into the labour market, would be entitled to apply for a certificate exempting them from the minimum wage and related labour laws for a limited period, such as two years. With a JSEC, a domestic worker and a household could agree on terms that suit them both. Such contracts would remain lawful, written, and enforceable in court, but would no longer be blocked by minimum wage levels or bureaucratic thresholds that prevent households and workers from reaching an agreement that is acceptable to both parties.

Each such arrangement would provide a job and an income, however modest, together with the work experience that allows people to move upwards over time. When labour laws prohibit such agreements, the worker is left with no employment at all. As Thomas Sowell has pointed out, the true minimum wage is zero.

For black women trying to enter or re-enter the labour market, such reform could be decisive. A school-leaver could lawfully take part-time work to build experience. A pensioner could again afford to hire help without breaching labour laws. A mother in a township could employ someone to help her once a week, creating income for someone who would otherwise remain unemployed.

South Africa has one of the highest unemployment levels in the world, yet the government continues to enforce labour laws that are presented as compassionate but in practice destroy millions of jobs. They deny work to the poorest, shut out new entrants, and outlaw even the meagre income upon which so many families depend. Domestic workers, the very people these laws claim to protect, are among the worst victims of this cruel contradiction.

Eustace Davie is President of the Free Market Foundation and author of Jobs for the Jobless and Unchain the Child.