The Employment Services Amendment Bill would fine any employer that breaks its foreign-labour rules R100 000 for a first offence, rising to the greater of R1 million or 10% of annual turnover for repeat offenders. The figures were laid out at the Agbiz annual information session in Pretoria on 8 October, according to Farmer’s Weekly, and they apply to every sector, not only farming. The bill is before Parliament, and written comment closes on 6 November 2026.
What the bill is and where it stands
The bill, numbered B16-2026, amends the Employment Services Act of 2014. According to Parliament’s media statement of 18 September, it sets out legal rules for employing foreign nationals, gives enforcement powers more reach and aligns the Act with the Immigration Act and the Refugees Act.
The Portfolio Committee on Employment and Labour received its first briefing from the Department of Employment and Labour on 5 August, says Parliament. Committee chairperson Boyce Maneli called the tabling of the bill “an important milestone in the committee’s legislative programme.” Members raised quotas and penalties for non-compliant employers, coordination between the labour department, Home Affairs and the police, and whether the state has the capacity to enforce any of it.
The committee has asked citizens, civil society, business organisations and organised labour to send submissions to employmentservicesbill@parliament.gov.za by 16:00 on Friday, 6 November, marked for the attention of Zolani Sakasa. Submitters should say whether they want to speak at the public hearings that follow. The bill text can be downloaded from the Parliament website. Nothing in it is law yet, and the committee has still to deliberate on it.
The penalties, tier by tier
The fines come in three steps, according to the summary by law firm Bowmans published on Afriwise, which matches the figures reported by Farmer’s Weekly:
- First contravention: R100 000.
- A further contravention within three years of a previous one: R200 000.
- Two or more earlier failures: the greater of R1 million or 10% of the employer’s turnover in the previous financial year.
For the top tier, Bowmans notes that a court must consider any economic benefit the employer gained from breaking the rules. The tiers apply to breaches of the new section 12A (the employer duties below), section 12B(8) (exceeding a quota) and section 12E (letting a foreign national work outside the terms of a visa).
Turnover is the key word. A company turning over R200 million a year faces a floor of R20 million at the top tier, because 10% of turnover is larger than R1 million.
The bill is also reported to expose employers to prosecution. Under current law, businesses caught with undocumented workers can only be fined, reported Scrolla via AllAfrica on 3 June, and the bill would make employers who knowingly hire undocumented foreign nationals liable to prosecution. That report gave no jail term, and the Bowmans summary does not mention a custodial penalty, so the length of any sentence is unconfirmed.
What employers would have to do
Under the proposed section 12A(2), every employer of a foreign national must, per Bowmans:
- Confirm the person may work in South Africa and may do the specific work.
- Verify, as prescribed, that no one who is not a foreign national and has the necessary skills is available for the vacancy.
- Prepare a skills transfer plan for each position held by a foreign national. The Minister may exempt categories of employers or workers where this is not practicable.
- Offer terms and conditions no less favourable than those of South African citizens.
- Keep copies of visas and other documents proving lawful work status.
Quotas, exemptions and enforcement
The Minister of Employment and Labour could set a maximum quota for foreign nationals by notice in the Government Gazette, after consulting the Employment Services Board. A quota could apply to a sector, an occupational category, a region within a sector, or the whole country. A draft must be published first, with at least 30 days for comment, per Bowmans.
Employers outside the public sector with fewer than 10 employees that run a single business are generally excluded, which is the threshold EWN also reported. Bowmans notes that the critical skills carve-out in the 2022 draft has been removed, so an employer that exceeds a quota would have to apply for an exemption.
Enforcement is the open question. Farmer’s Weekly reports that government plans to recruit 10 000 additional labour inspectors at a cost of about R10 billion. That figure was reported from the Agbiz session and was not in the Parliament statements reviewed here. Deputy Labour Minister Jomo Sibiya has framed the logic simply, according to Scrolla: “If we deal with the employers, it means we will stop the demand.”
Employers can act before any of this passes. Records of visas, a documented search for local candidates and a written skills transfer plan are the three things the bill would ask to see, and none of them takes a law to begin. Written comment goes in by 6 November.
