South African companies which are unable to continue business with the same amount of staff have started retrenching workers from last week due to the fact that they cannot afford to pay their salaries from the month of July going forward as they lost more than 50 percent of profit during level 5 and 4 of lockdown where they remained closed.
As the government announced an advanced level 3 of lockdown in the country, a number of top companies which have played a role in the South African economy just announced that they will be cutting the number of employees due to the fact they they are reducing costs to survive lockdown and the Covid-19 Pandemic.
President Cyril Ramaphosa and his cabinet are trying everything they can to save the economy and jobs for the people but so far they made some of the decisions which did not help companies which means companies don’t have any other option but to retrench people because of the pandemic.
About a million people have lost their jobs during level 5 and 4 of lockdown in South Africa where they depended on UIF for survival. The retrenched workers are now depending on government for the social distress grant which has not performed well since it was announced during level 4 that unemployed people will receive the grant for 6 months from May to October 2020.
It looks like more then 2 million people will further be retrenched by a few companies in the country as Edcon has just announced a further 22 000 jobs to be lost by the end of June 2020 due to the fact that they did not make any money during level 5 and 4 of the lockdown meaning they cannot back track and pay the rent and salaries for the previous 2 months while they still have to pay salaries starting from end of June 2020 going forward. The company is currently negotiating with government on measures to help the company continue business to save thousands of jobs for the people.
We will keep you updates with any latest news regarding the employment status of the country as the lockdown continues until level one in South Africa.
