Companies that failed to comply with the Employment Equity Amendment Act, which provides for the setting of numerical targets for different economic sectors, will be barred from doing business with the state, employment & labour minister Thulas Nxesi said in the National Assembly on Wednesday.
Nxesi said the sector stakeholder engagements had been concluded and the employment equity numerical targets for each sector would soon be published in the Government Gazette for public comment for 30 days. A number of proposals had been made by stakeholders that were being consolidated.The law would first be applied by using corrective measures, but if there was resistance by companies it would be applied very harshly.
This was positive discrimination or affirmative action, Nxesi said but Cardo stated that the numerical targets were a form of job reservation and quota. The minister said the aim of the act was to ensure transformation and the equitable representation of suitably qualified people at all occupational levels from the groups designated in the act. The designated groups are African, coloured, Indian, women of all races and people with disabilities.