‘Whole of government broke’: Here’s why SA has critical social service shortages

The Department of Social Development is facing a critical shortage of social service professionals, but government departments lack the financial capacity to hire more people.

According to Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu, there are “budget constraints across the whole of government.”

Social workers in South Africa are among public servants struggling with little to no salary increases over the last two years.

According to a report by BusinessTech, the third year of negotiated wage agreements in the public sector (2021) between unions and the government fell away to an incremental rise in pay.

Effective July 2021, public service workers saw only a 1.5% increase in salaries, with a small cash bonus offered to those on lower salary bands.

What is govt doing to address the problem?

Zulu says the government is trying to address the shortage by setting up the Social Work Scholarship Programme.

But the program’s beneficiaries had not yet been placed in schools where they are needed.
The minister, however, said program recipients could also work in the private sector.

During an interview on SABC, a group of unemployed social workers accused Zulu and the DSD of discriminating against social workers who have not completed the scholarship programme.

But there are attempts to secure funding from National Treasury.

An Intersectoral Forum has been set up to employ more social workers across government departments, including the Department of Basic Education (and) Health.

“The sector departments will submit a joint bid to the National Treasury to obtain funds for the recruitment and permanent employment of social work graduates,” Zulu said.

How much do social workers earn in SA?

Salary tracking websites PayScale, Indeed and Talent.com places the average salary for a social worker within a broad range of R188,000 to R300,000 per annum.

However, child and youth care workers remain the lowest paid – between R143,073 and R190,575 per year, or R11,900 to R15,900 per month.

The highest earners are social work and community development managers, earning as much as R1.12 million a year (R93,000 per month).

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