Finance and Economic Opportunities
- (a) What is the total number of workers at the Saldanha Bay plant of ArcelorMittal South Africa (AMSA) who have been retrenched to date and (b) what is the total number of workers from local companies, that were contracting with AMSA, who have been retrenched to date;
- whether the provincial government has given the workers social support, including taking steps to assist them with re-employment; if not, why not; if so, what are the relevant details?
- (a) At March 2019, ArcelorMittal South Africa’s (AMSA) Saldanha Plant employed 568 employees. It is estimated that 550 – 560 of these employees have been retrenched or left the company.
Through a survey and stakeholder engagements, 24 companies were identified that are immediately negatively impacted on by AMSA’s closing, of which 13 provided detailed responses on what they need.
On average, the 13 responding companies relied on AMSA for 80% of their work. The Department of Economic Development and Tourism (DEDAT) and its partners have worked with these companies to identify alternative opportunities that can reduce the impact on their business, including assisting them to access Small Enterprise Development Agency (SEDA) interventions like turnaround and marketing specialists, or accessing funds like the Booster Fund.
- (b) At this stage there is no clear indication of the number of people that have been retrenched from these companies, but the total
employment number of the 13 companies was 320 people at the time of the survey.
- DEDAT has partnered with the Department of Social Development (DSD) that is mandated to provide social support to the citizens of the region. The DSD is tracking the number of requests made for food parcels and other social support interventions in the area, specifically related to the AMSA closure and has, for example, identified at least 17 cases of request for food parcels from former employees of AMSA.
DSD has also ensured that the situation is placed on the WOSA platform with DEDAT’s support, to ensure that the longer-term social ills can be mitigated for through interventions by other social support Departments like Education and Health.
DEDAT in partnership with Department of Local Government (DLG), has also brought the national Department of Labour (DoL) to the communities during the process of the Career Resilience Outreach days in February. DoL ensures that employment seekers are databased, and that this database is made available to interested parties like recruitment agencies and SETAs.
The Career Resilience outreach sessions will again be effected when the lock-down is lifted. These career resilience days also include exhibition by organisations that do employment matchmaking and recruitment, and can therefore assist the unemployed of Saldanha broadly, not only those impacted on by the AMSA closure.
Lastly, DEDAT continues to work with the DTI, IDC, Wesgro, SBIDZ and AMSA itself to find new investment opportunities for both the plant and surrounding areas that can improve the employment opportunities in this area and re-absorb retrenched employees.
