Another 600 SABC Employees Being Retrenched Due to 'Restructuring'
- The South African Broadcasting Commission will be retrenching over 600 employees by April
- The SABC reportedly issued redundancy notices and the process is underway, which management says is crucial to its turnaround plan and sustainability
- The SABC has been lowering its number of employees for a while, having had over 3 000 employees in 2019
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621 People employed by SABC will be retrenched by the end of March. The SABC began issuing redundancy notices to employees in June 2020, stirring resistance among union members who fought the process in court and threatened to strike.
The lowering of employee costs is crucial to the SABC’s turnaround plan and overall sustainability. The retrenchment process began with the issuing of the notices in June, 2020 and will conclude on 31 March, 2021.
The SABC stated that 346 employees out of the total had chosen to take the voluntary severance packages while the remaining 275 jobs had become redundant.
Source: Getty Images
The SABC made a conscious effort to find those affected by the retrenchment process alternative positions within the broadcaster.
According to The Citizen, SABC’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Madoda Mxakwe said that the retrenchment process has been difficult for stakeholders, adding that it became 'emotionally charged' at certain times.
News24 reported that the public broadcaster had reduced its employees since 2019 where it moved from 3 167 to 2 979 by 2020. However, the report says that the number of freelancers grew quite a bit from 2019 to 2020.
Previously, Briefly.co.za reported that the SABC had lost R511 million. The broadcaster reported a R511 million loss for the financial year 2019/20. This was greater than the previous year's loss, which sat at R482.4 million.
The SABC had less liquidity this year with R72 million at the ready which was R58 million less than 2018/19. A 12% year-on-year revenue loss has added to the broadcaster's woes, ad advertising income dropped across all of its platforms.
SABC board chairman Bongumusa Makhathini was upbeat and believed that the leadership were steering the state-owned-enterprise in the right direction. Staff members and the public have reacted with dismay as the SABC reported that it would have to cut its workforce.
South Africans reacted in dismay, with Hlaudi Motsoeneng's name being invoked in tweets reacting to the situation.
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Source: Briefly News
