There are over 6 million unemployed young people in South Africa. The government has taken measures to incentivise you, the business owner to assist in getting people into the workplace and skills training interventions.
Some of these measures include tax incentives for training individuals. Up to 20% on the B-BBEE Scorecard for Skills development, which is a mandatory element. Additionally, should entities meet all the YES [Youth Employment Services] qualifying criteria and pre-conditions, which include conducting YES-specific learning programmes, YES can assist entities to enhance their overall B-BBEE status with up to 2 levels buy hosting young people for workplace experience and implementing specific learning programmes.
Skills Development Levies [SDL] must be paid by organisations that have a payroll of over R500 000 per year. This SDL is paid to the respective Sector Education Training Authorities [SETA’s] SDL amounts to 1% of Payroll. If Workplace Skills Plans [WSP] and Annual Training reports [ATR] are submitted your organisation would be eligible to have access to this money through mandatory as well as discretionary grants to assist you to pay for training interventions.
Countless organisations have been able to claim their significant SARS tax rebates for each learner sponsored on a 12-month leadership, apply for grant funding to implement such training projects as well as claim their B-BBEE points for implementing these projects as per in the below graphic.
B-BBEE is not only necessary when tendering for work in the public sector. Many private companies are only wanting to deal with compliant companies due to the above 40% procurement pillar in the score card to improve their own B-BBEE Score and thus better their prospects in certain spheres.
The skills shortage and unemployment rate are very real problems in South Africa. It is good to know that there are incentives in place to be part of the solution. Even though it may seem daunting at times to claim those.
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