Sonja Vorster
Who must register and contribute?
All employees working more than 24 hours per month for any person or business MUST by law be registered for Unemployment Insurance Benefits. If you are a domestic worker, garden worker or a casual worker at a shop and only works ½ a day per week for an employer you must be registered for Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) by the employer.
If you work for a number of employers, each employer must register you for the hours you work for them per month and contribute to the fund. One of the exclusions for registration of UIF, is, if the employee receives a state old age pension.
The employer must contribute one percent of the employee’s wages and the employee must contribute one percent. The two percent contribution must be paid over to the department monthly.
Unfounded fears
Many employees including domestics, garden workers and casuals are afraid that, if they are registered for UIF and they receive a grant, that they stand the risk of losing the grant.
This is simply not true. You will not lose your grant. It is not difficult to register as an employer and by registering as an employer, it also will not mean that the Department of Labour is now going to target you as they may now know you have a worker.
The department does not go out to target employers or to catch them out and fine them when they can see you are trying to follow the law. I find many employers telling me that they pay the worker cash at the end of each day’s work, but in the same breath they tell me that the employee comes once or twice a week for the past year.
Employers; that employee must not only be registered for UIF and contributions paid over to the department but also the employee qualifies for leave. I will deal with the leave entitlement for these workers in a later article.
Value of being registered?
The employee would be paid for the hours (wages) he/she worked for the employer in the event of the employee becoming unemployed due to retrenchment, dismissal, contract ended, pregnancy, illness benefits, adoption, and benefits for dependants if the employee passes away.
