The much-anticipated new leave laws will be introduced in phases by the Department of Labour starting at the end of this month. The new parental leave laws were signed into the Labour Laws Amendment Bill in November 2018.
Businesses, however, were left confused as the new rules surrounding paternity and adoptive leave were delayed to ensure they were properly integrated into the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF).
The Labour Laws Amendment Act has set out to create parental leave, adoption leave and commissioning parental leave to employees, which includes:
– An employee, who is a parent of a child, is entitled to ten consecutive days of parental leave
– An employee, who is an adoptive parent of a child below the age of two, is entitled to
– Adoption leave of at least ten consecutive weeks
– At least ten consecutive days of parental leave
“We had to reconfigure the system to consider the benefits of all these new additions and make sure that all of the benefits and dates line up,” acting department spokesperson Makhosonke Buthelezi said to BusinessTech.
The planned dates for system readiness are as follows:
– Parental benefits – July 31 2019
– Adoption benefits – October 11 2019
– Commissioning parental benefits – December 20 2019
While the UIF systems will be ready by these dates, Buthelezi stated that the actual implementation of the changes may be delayed as the rules are yet to be officially instated by lawmakers.
“Once the UIF is ready at a system-level and the legislation has been approved, the new amendments will officially be in effect,” he said.
Picture: Pixabay
