Cabinet approves National Labour Migration Policy to regulate foreign employment
Cosatu has welcomed the Cabinet approving the National Labour Migration Policy (NLMP) White Paper 2025 for implementation.
The paper will mark a significant step in regulating the movement and employment of foreign nationals in South Africa.
Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said that the policy seeks to provide a framework to enforce proper and orderly movement and employment of foreign nationals in the country. 'It aims to achieve a balance across several areas, including addressing South Africans' expectations for job prospects, in light of rising unemployment and the perception that foreign nationals restrict labour market access.'
Cabinet said that the NLMP introduces quotas on the total number of documented foreign nationals with work visas that can be employed in major economic sectors such as agriculture, hospitality and tourism, as well as construction, among others. 'The policy complements other interventions such as enforcement of a list of sectors where foreign nationals cannot be allocated business visas and amendments to the National Small Enterprise Act, 1996 (Act 102 of 1996), as amended, to limit foreign nationals establishing small, medium and micro enterprises, and trading in some sectors of the economy.'
Cabinet added that the NLMP is the first comprehensive National Labour Migration Policy aimed at managing labour migration both into and out of the country. 'The policy is designed to promote a 'brain gain' by attracting skilled workers to South Africa, while also addressing the 'brain drain' caused by the emigration of skilled professionals. The Employment Services Amendment Bill goes hand-in-hand with the NLMP and has been created to make it legal for the government to regulate the employment of immigrants in South African businesses.'
One of the bill's more contentious features is the potential introduction of employment quotas, which would limit the number of immigrants that businesses can hire and require employers to prioritise the hiring of South African citizens, the Cabinet said.
Matthew Parks, Parliamentary Coordinator for Cosatu, said that he welcomes Cabinet's approval of the National Labour Migration Policy and the Employment Services Amendment Bill. 'Cosatu extensively engaged on both the Policy and the Bill at Nedlac and looks forward to the Bill's processing and adoption by Parliament and their implementation. The Bill and the Policy provide a long overdue response to the flood of undocumented migrant labour into the economy over the past decade.'
Parks said this will enable the Minister for Employment and Labour to set limits on the number of documented migrant workers that can be employed in a workplace and an economic sector.
'These limits are critical for an economy battling dangerously high and rising unemployment levels of 43.1% overall and 72% among youth. We have seen countless unscrupulous employers in certain sectors, in particular agriculture, petrol stations, restaurants, and construction, among others; preferring to employ undocumented migrant labour as their vulnerability opens them to wildly abusive exploitation."
Parks said they hope that the Department of Employment and Labour's recruitment drive for an additional 20 000 labour inspectors will provide a decisive boost to efforts to crack down on such violations of workers' hard-won labour rights.
It is crucial that the Critical Skills List be continuously assessed by government with business and labour at Nedlac to ensure that it is positioned to attract scarce skills to South Africa, to upskill local workers and to ensure unemployed South Africans with such needed skills are prioritised, he said.
'Whilst migration is ingrained with history and South Africa is no exception, the current levels into South Africa are unsustainable, more so given the high levels of unemployment. The Bill and Policy seek to find the correct balance and to ensure the state is better capacitated to set limits and protect the needs of workers. These are badly needed, and their implementation must be expedited,' Parks said.
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