Employment and Labour offices closed as a precautionary measure

The Department of Employment and Labour has closed two labour centres as one employee at each office has tested positive for COVID-19.

The Eastern Cape provincial office in East London and the Vredenburg Labour Centre in the Western Cape Province have been closed as of Monday.

“To ensure that service delivery is not hindered, the department’s officials will work remotely from home and will only come to the office in shifts with no interaction with the public due to lockdown regulations,” said the department.

The temporary closure of the offices is intended to allow all workers who may have been in contact with the infected officials to be monitored and for the offices to be decontaminated.

The Chief Directors: Provincial Operations: Nomfundo Douw-Jack in the Eastern Cape and Mawele Ntamo in the Western Cape confirmed that the officials have interacted with other employees who were working at the same section.

The close contacts of the officials have been advised accordingly and will now be quarantined for a period of 14 days before coming back to work.

Labour centres across the country opened on Monday and are following the necessary precautionary measures, including temperature screening, maintenance of social distancing and use of personal protective equipment to ensure that staff and clients are protected from infecting each other.

It is expected that the two offices, the Vredenburg Labour Centre and the Eastern Cape provincial office, will open to the public on the 10 and 12 June 2020 respectively.