The Labour Ministry is to spend almost half its R1,7-billion budget increasing its contingent of inspectors to help it keep track of whether companies are employing enough qualified black candidates.
Inspections of Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed companies would be doubled this year to check for "substantive compliance" with employment equity legislation, Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana said during debate in the National Assembly on his budget vote on Thursday.
"The carrot is not working and the stick has to come out," he said.
Recent research findings by the Human Sciences Research Council had blown out of the water the commonly used excuse that there were not enough "skilled black workers in the labour market".
The research had found there were growing pools of eligible black workers and that there was "very little merit in the assertion that (qualified blacks and women) were not out there", Mdladlana said.
The Freedom Front Plus, the DA and National Alliance called for a relaxing of the affirmative action policy and for children born after 1994 to be exempted.
ANC MPs, however, urged the government to continue providing preferential employment to formerly disadvantaged groups.
"The contestation (of the affirmative action and employment equity policy) is mainly launched by counter-revolutionary forces hell-bent on reversing gains made by South Africans since 1994," Tuelo Anthony (ANC) said.
Equity and transformation were vehicles to restore people's dignity, he said.
Mdladlana also slammed companies for using "labour market rigidity" as an excuse for not employing more permanent workers.
He said that of the 13 million South Africans employed, only 7,7 million were in permanent jobs and a whopping 5,8 million were not registered for unemployment insurance benefits (UIF).
"How can our labour market be rigid when half of our workers are in casual and temporary jobs (and) 5,8 million are not covered by UIF?"
Also, 2,7 million workers did not have written contracts and 4,1 million did not have paid leave.
Mdladlana said that efforts to balance security and flexibility were leaning more towards flexibility.
This did not bode well for the worker and benefited the employer, he said.
"How can we complain about labour market rigidity when workers continue to die daily in workplaces?"
Last year alone, 332 died in their places of work, Mdladlana said.