EC department of economic development, environmental affairs has indicated in a press statement that the Minister of Women in the Presidency Bathabile Dlamini has called on the participants at the Jobs Summit to ensure that women are at the centre of deliberations to unfold during the meeting.
The summit took place in Johannesburg yesterday and Chris Hani regional executive committee chairman Wongama Gela and regional treasury Madoda Papiyana were in attendance.
“Participants at the Jobs Summit are urged to consider that women continue to be paid less than their male counterparts who do the same, and sometimes less work,” Dlamini said yesterday.
Dlamini noted that women are disproportionately over-represented in industries with the highest numbers of workers earning less than R20 per hour.
According to the latest statistics from the Office of the Statistician-General, women, particularly black women, are less likely to participate in the labour market.
The Minister said this could be attributed to, among other things, gender exposure to education, historic trivializing of women’s work, the exclusion of women from formal work, and the systematic segregation of women into the lower working classes.
