The Department of Labour and Employment offers public employment services (PES). Job seekers can use these contacts. Read how to use the ESSA system if you’re looking for skills or are available for employment.
Public Employment Services (PES) For Job Seekers
The South African government’s Public Employment Services (PES) are responsible for overseeing various aspects of employment and labour-related matters in the country.
Deputy Director-General Public Employment Services
Public Employment Services Contacts
Mr. Sam Morotoba
Tel: (012) 309 4782/3
Fax: (012) 320 9192
Email: pescontactcentre@labour.gov.za (for call centre assistance)
pes@labour.gov.za (for password reset only).
Public Employment Services Purpose
The primary purpose of Public Employment Services is to facilitate the connection between job seekers and employers, aiming to reduce unemployment rates and improve the overall functioning of the labour market.
Public Employment Services provides assistance to companies and workers to adjust to changing labour market conditions and to regulate private employment agencies.
Public Employment Services Description
The programme consists of the following sub-programmes:
Public Employment Services Management and Support Services
Public Employment Services manages delegated administrative and financial responsibilities, coordinates all planning, monitoring and evaluation functions,
and provides corporate support to line function sub-programmes.
PES Employer Services, with the following functions:
- Register job vacancies and other work opportunities
- Facilitate placing of work seekers with employers or in other work opportunities
- Facilitate the exchange of information among labour market participants, including employers, workers and work seekers, private employment agencies, Sector Education and Training Authorities and training providers.
- Facilitating the employment of foreign nationals in a manner that is consistent with the object of this Act and the Immigration Act.
- Assists companies in distress, provides a social plan and regulates private employment agencies and Temporary Employment Services.
Public Employment Services Support
- Job Matching: They assist job seekers in finding suitable employment opportunities based on their skills, qualifications, and preferences.
- Job Listings and Vacancies: PES typically maintain a database of available job opportunities and vacancies.
- Career Guidance and Counseling: They may provide guidance to job seekers on career planning, skill development, and training opportunities.
- Employer Services: They also work with employers to help them find suitable candidates for their job openings.
- Labour Market Information: PES often collect and disseminates information about the labour market, including employment trends, demand for specific skills, and other relevant data.
Work-Seeker Services:
- Match work-seekers with available work opportunities
- Register work seekers, and retrenched workers, on the employment services system (ESSA)
- Advise work seekers on access to education and training
- Advise workers on access to social security benefits
- Provide specialised services to assist vulnerable work-seekers
- Facilitate the provision of employability enhancement programmes.
PES Designated Groups Special Services:
Facilitates the transfer of subsidies to designated organisations to promote the employment of people with disabilities, youth, and women, in collaboration with relevant bodies.
The PES programme has oversight over the following entities:
Supported Employment Enterprises (SEE)
- Facilitates supported employment
- Provides work opportunities for persons with disabilities
- Develop and implement programmes that promote the employability of persons with disabilities. Including persons with permanent disablement as defined in the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act, 1993 (Act No. 130 of 1993), in the light of their evolving needs in a changing economy
- Performs any other function as may be prescribed by the Minister.
Productivity South Africa
- Promotes a culture of productivity in the workplace
- Develop relevant productivity competencies
- Facilitates and evaluates productivity improvement and competitiveness in workplaces
- Measures and evaluates productivity in the workplace
- Maintains a database of productivity and competitiveness systems and to publicise these systems
- Undertakes productivity-related research
- Supports initiatives aimed at preventing job losses; and performs any other prescribed function.
Transfer of funds to the Compensation Fund
Compensation Fund
- Provides for compensation to workplace injuries and diseases. PES makes provision for the compensation of public servants in terms of the COIDA
- Branch PES facilitates the conclusion of the Memorandum of Agreement, transfer of funding and monitoring of the entity’s performance against its Strategic Plan.
Greater coordination with the DoL is also desirable. Cooperation between DoL and the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) institutions would add value to ESSA services. Areas for cooperation could include a shared strategy for the ESSA system, and plans for the sharing of employment data generated through ESSA, which could help to identify appropriate target groups for skills upgrading.
Finally, ongoing research on ESSA trends would be valuable. Future research should monitor changes in the employers who use ESSA, their employment needs and their opinions on services rendered.
Public Employment Services Going forward
Public employment services such as ESSA should generate potentially valuable and relevant administrative information about labour market demand and supply that can be used for skills planning. The quality of service that ESSA offers depends on the integrity of the captured data. Ideally, high-quality service and data will improve rates of matching which will, in turn, attract increased employer and worker participation consequently improving national skills-planning capacities.
Working with South Africa’s Public employment services: employers’ experiences
A study on employers’ experiences and attitudes to the Employment Services of South Africa (ESSA) recommends the introduction of a far more sophisticated online ESSA platform and better coordination with the Department of Labour, writes Fabian Arends.
Public employment services (PES) represent key labour market policy instruments that governments all over the world use to facilitate employment. Their core function is to match job seekers with employers by facilitating access to and information sharing between organisations with vacancies and people seeking gainful employment.
In South Africa, the Employment Services of South Africa (ESSA) have been designed to play this vital intermediary role.
A survey canvassed employers’ attitudes to, interactions with and experiences of ESSA. The survey was supplemented by interviews with managers of ESSA labour centres and a brief desktop study to place the South African experience in an international context.
Public Employment Services: Employers’ use and perceptions of ESSA
In terms of the scale of use, a number of salient results emerged from our survey. For recruitment purposes, employers use ESSA as one of several channels, ranging from the formal to the informal.
A slight majority of respondents (50.6%) do not post all their vacancies on ESSA. Employers also perceive ESSA to be mainly a source of information about intermediate and low-skilled workers. Public entities, which are required to list all their vacancies on ESSA, predominantly need to recruit high and intermediate-skilled workers, but ESSA has limited capacity to respond to this need, as the majority of work seekers are at intermediate and low-skilled levels.
In terms of the effectiveness of job matches, we observed that the majority (56%) of successful matches made through ESSA result in long-term placements.
In terms of employer perceptions of future improvements, employers who participated in the survey were accustomed to accessing ESSA services online via labour centres. However, employers signalled the need to improve the system by assisting work seekers to prepare for job searches and interviews. According to the employers, this can be achieved through programmes to improve employability, and by screening of candidates.
https://essa.labour.gov.za/EssaOnline/WebBeans
Value of public employment services for skills planning
The research suggests that the ESSA system should remain committed to low-skilled worker hires. The system already has a high volume of low-skilled vacancy registrations and work seekers and has proven less effective in addressing medium or high-skilled vacancies. A focus on job placements for those who are most vulnerable is a critical role for ESSA.
If ESSA generates quality data in this regard, it can inform skills planning for the unemployed — a dimension that is often neglected in favour of a focus on forecasting, shortages, scarce and critical skills.
To ensure more effective data, the introduction of a far more sophisticated online ESSA platform is highly desirable. Many ESSA clients have access to the technology necessary to utilise such a system, which could also create substantial savings in transaction costs while improving the ability to monitor employment data.
It is however, important to note that many potential users do not have access to computers, and few labour centres have their own workstations that clients can use. It is critical, therefore, that information generated at labour centres is captured electronically on the ESSA electronic platform.
This will ensure the consistency, accuracy and validity of labour market information generated through the ESSA platform.
Greater coordination with the DoL is also desirable. Cooperation between DoL and the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) institutions would add value to ESSA services. Areas for cooperation could include a shared strategy for the ESSA system, and plans for the sharing of employment data generated through ESSA, which could help to identify appropriate target groups for skills upgrading.
Finally, ongoing research on ESSA trends would be valuable. Future research should monitor changes in the employers who use ESSA, their employment needs and their opinions on services rendered.
Going forward
Public employment services such as ESSA should generate potentially valuable and relevant administrative information about labour market demand and supply that can be used for skills planning. The quality of service that ESSA offers depends on the integrity of the captured data. Ideally, high-quality service and data will improve rates of matching which will, in turn, attract increased employer and worker participation consequently improving national skills-planning capacities.
References
Authors: Fabian Arends, senior research manager, Education and Skills Development (ESD) research programme, HSRC.
The full report, Fabian Arends, Sybil Chabane, Andrew Paterson (2015) Investigating Employer Interaction with the Employment Services of South Africa (ESSA), is available onwww.lmip.org.za
http://www.hsrc.ac.za/en/review/hsrc-review-july-to-sept-2016/employment-services-sa
Important:
http://www.lmip.org.za/sites/default/files/documentfiles/HSRC%20LMIP%20ESSA%20Report%20Proof%208_0.pdf
http://www.sancb.org.za/sites/default/files/ESSA-ONLINE-PRESENTATION-2013_1.pdf
