New minimum wage could increase domestic workers’ salaries to R25 an hour

Domestic workers could see a hike in their pay with the National Minimum Wage Commission recommending an above-inflation hike to the national minimum wage (NMW) for 2023 to around R25.05 an hour.

With the consumer price index sitting at around 7% last year, the hike is said to help minimum wage earners stay above water with the drastic rise in prices of consumables.

In its preliminary report the NMW Commission is eyeing an annual increase in the NMW in the range of consumer price index (CPI) +0.5 percent and CPI +1 percent for 2023.

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Last year, Minister for the Department of Employment and Labour, Thulas Nxesi, announced that the national minimum wage would be adjusted from R21,69 an hour to R23,19 an hour.

Meanwhile, a report released by SweepSouth showed that in Gauteng, the average domestic helpers took home around R2814 a month, which was around 41% higher than other provinces.

SweepSouth reported that these figures actually indicated that average earnings increased significantly in 2022 on the back of the recent increase in minimum pay per job. The entity also observed a steady rise in voluntary contributions from clients which had helped to bolster earnings.

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If the recommendations of the commission are followed, then the average domestic worker working full time, 22 days a month and 8 hours a day, should be earning around R4 408, 80 a month.

But that figure is not a reality for the majority of domestic workers in the country, as well as other minimum wage earners in the farming and hospitality sector.

A number of employers of domestic workers – who were also struck by all-round price hikes – said that they would not likely increase the pay they allocated to their domestic helper in their monthly budget but would instead reduce the number of hours the worker was employed in order to stay in the budget of the payments.

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This would not fulfil NMW Chairperson Professor Adriaan van der Walt’s vision to ensure that all wage-earning workers earn enough to maintain a decent standard of living, defined as sufficient to support themselves and their families at a level that is both socially acceptable and economically viable.

“The target should ensure that the value of the national minimum wage does not decline relative to the median wage.”