EMPLOYMENT SERVICES AMENDMENT BILL FINALLY ON ITS WAY TO PARLIAMENT

EMPLOYMENT SERVICES AMENDMENT BILL FINALLY ON ITS WAY TO PARLIAMENT

• 26 May 2026
• Labour Law
• SA Legal Academy

The Department of Employment & Labour has gazetted a notice announcing the imminent tabling of an Employment Services Amendment Bill approved by Cabinet in May 2025. The Bill’s procedurally required pre-tabling explanatory summary is attached to the notice and lists its overarching objectives, which include:

• extending the scope of the Act to cover:
  • foreign nationals
  • ‘private employment agencies not operating for gain’, and
  • ‘workers’ in general
• regulating the employment of foreign nationals in a manner consistent with the purpose of:
  • the 2014 principal statute
  • the 2002 Immigration Act, and
  • the 1998 Refugees Act
• empowering the Minister ‘to make regulations in respect of matters related to labour migration’
• expanding the functions of the Employment Services Board
• providing for ‘the establishment and governance of supported employment enterprises’
• providing for ‘further offences and the improved enforcement of the Act and immigration laws regulating work by foreign nationals’, and
• providing for exemptions from the principal statute, as amended.

As SA Legal Academy reported when Cabinet approved the Bill for tabling, according to a media statement issued at the time the proposed new piece of legislation is underpinned by government’s commitment to:

• promoting ‘national security and national interests’, and
• preventing ‘worker exploitation … (including employer access to) cheap labour through undocumented foreign nationals’.

Against that backdrop, the Bill seeks to enable the Minister to set quotas for the sectoral, occupational, and location-specific employment of foreign nationals.

During her 1 May 2026 Workers Day speech, Employment & Labour Minister Nomakhosazana Meth erroneously included the Bill in a list of legislation already before Parliament. SA Legal Academy Policy Watch alerted readers to this at the time.

• explanatory summary
• 29 May 2025 Cabinet media statement
• Minister’s 1 May 2026 speech

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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