Setting Employment Equity Targets: What the New Amendment Act Means for Your Business

The Employment Equity Amendment Act introduces significant changes to how organisations must approach workforce representation. With ministerial sectoral targets becoming mandatory and compliance certificates at stake, employers need a strategic approach to target setting that balances legal requirements with business realities.

Understanding the Framework

The target-setting ecosystem under the EE Amendment Act consists of three key components working together:

1. The Employment Equity Act: Empowers the Minister to set numerical targets for national economic sectors to ensure equitable representation of designated groups across all occupational levels.

2. The Employment Equity Regulations: Clarify that sectoral targets exclude white males and foreign nationals, and specify how designated employers must apply these targets.

3. The Codes of Good Practice: Require workforce profiles to be compared against appropriate EAP benchmarks, with employers demonstrating reasonable progress toward achieving equitable representation.

   
   

Five Key Steps to Target Setting Compliance

1. Determine your baseline: Use your current workforce profile as a starting point for conducting a gap analysis, drafting a plan, and then ultimately, the statistics as at August 31, 2025, will be reported in the EEA2.

2. Select the appropriate EAP: If operating in multiple provinces, choose either the national EAP or the EAP of the province where your largest operations are conducted.

3. Identify your sector: For companies operating across multiple sectors, use the numerical targets for the sector where the majority of employees are engaged.

4. Calculate 2030 targets: Using the formula (Sub-race Group's EAP %) ÷ (Total Designated Group EAP %) × Sectoral Target % to align with EAP proportionality.

5. Forecast workforce changes: Project your 2030 headcount considering economic factors, automation trends, work transformation, retention patterns, and skills availability.

   
   

Important Considerations

• Targets for 2026-2029 must show "reasonable progress" toward the 2030 ministerial targets

• Semi-skilled and unskilled target percentages should align with your chosen EAP

• Deviation from targets requires documented "justifiable reasons" from the "Big 7" list, including:

  • No recruitment opportunities

  • No promotion opportunities

  • No suitably qualified persons

  • Business circumstances

  • Mergers and acquisitions

  • Transfers

  • Court orders

    
    

The Compliance Timeline

Starting September 1, 2025, your five-year Employment Equity Plan must demonstrate progress toward 2030 targets. From 2026 onward, compliance certificates will be withheld for:

• Unfair discrimination findings (from January 1, 2025)

• Non-achievement of targets without justifiable reasons

  
  

Practical Advice

• Develop a data-driven target-setting methodology

• Document all assumptions in your workforce forecasting

• Consider conducting a PESTEL and SWOT analysis to identify factors affecting your ability to meet targets

• Create a systematic transformation plan with annual milestones

• Address both tangible (numerical targets) and intangible (workplace culture) aspects of employment equity

  
  

Understanding these requirements and implementing a strategic approach to target setting will help ensure your organisation maintains compliance while achieving meaningful transformation.

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