SA labour department urges firms to apply for Covid-19 benefits for workers

JOHANNESBURG  – South Africa’s employment and labour minister Thulas Nxesi has called on employers registered with the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) to apply for Covid-19 benefits on behalf of their employees.

The fund gives short-term relief to South African workers when they become unemployed or are unable to work because of maternity, adoption leave or illness. It also provides relief to the dependants of a deceased contributor.

As part of its response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the department has issued a directive for relief to be provided to contributors who have lost income or have been required to take annual leave during a five week national lockdown the government enforced to try and reduce new transmissions of the coronavirus fast spreading around the world after being first reported in China last December.

To date, the UIF has received just over 55,268 applications from employers representing just above 1.6 million employees. In total, the fund has over 1.8 million employers registered on its database representing more than eight million workers, the labour department said.

The UIF has processed 37,673 employer applications, meaning 606,462 employees will receive their benefit.  About 9,938 applications were not processed due to errors which the relevant companies have been notified to rectify.