In On Africa (IOA) and Managing Transformation Solutions (MTS) partnered in 2016 to provide insights into the emerging trends of various government and private sector initiatives by assessing sample data drawn from the MTS Insite platform over 2012 and 2017, and covering 45 mining (inclusive of core contractor) companies in the country.

The analysis compared the data across factors such as number of employed, key core positions, gender representation, age distribution, Paterson bands, and FET, GET and HET education levels.

A core aspect behind the drive to conduct the study emerged from the consistent downturn that the mining industry in South Africa has experience since the start of the decade. The drop-in commodities demand placed considerable pressure on companies operating in the market to initiate employee and spending cutbacks. This in turn impacted the stability of production with labour holding recurrent strikes to demand wage increases.

Coupled with the global trends in demand, local pressure was also exerted on the industry in the form of government requirements to increase local community beneficiation, shareholding, and stringent requirements for health and safety, as well as education and training to increase. This placed the industry in a tough position to remain both relevant and competitive while still adhering to government policy.

Report by In on Africa and Managing Transformation Solutions