Moratorium needed to halt retrenchments - Cosatu

This after Multichoice announced their plans to let go 2,000 employees at its call centres and walk-in services.

However, the quarterly employment survey shows employment increased by 76 000 or 0,8% year-on-year between March 2018 and March 2019.

Cosatu spokesperson Sizwe Pamla says the increase doesn't make a difference when there are more jobs being lost.

ALSO READ:Retrenchments ‘inevitable’ as economy struggles

"When you haemorrhage jobs in one sector then you create jobs in another sector - especially when you haemorrhage jobs that are paying decent salaries and you create jobs that are not even decent enough to allow people to feed and clothe their families it is not really what we are calling for.

"For us, if we do not have a moratorium on retrenchments anything that you point towards as some kind of achievement is actually redundant."

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However, Efficient Group economist Dawie Roodt says it makes no sense to force companies to hold onto staff they cannot afford to pay.

"The suggestion by Cosatu that there should be a moratorium on retrenchments simply does not make sense and it does not make sense. If you expect a company to keep many people employed and the company cannot afford all the people then the company will simply go bankrupt eventually and that will result in even more people losing their jobs."

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Companies currently retrenching workers include:

Multichoice

Tiso Star

IBM

Eskom

Distell

Miway

Nedbank

Standard Bank

Continental tyres

Murray & Roberts

PPC

SABC

Toyota

Hullet

Absa

Parmalat

Basil Read

VSL

YFM

Old mutual

Royal & summit

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