The government this week expressed its horror at statistics showing that whites still dominated the top echelons of private sector company management, but the Employment Equity Commission’s black mark for business masked a real shift in workplace racial composition.

Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant said she was “aghast” at the figures, which showed that top management remained overwhelmingly lily-white – and predominantly male – and would take nearly 130 years to correct at the current snail-pace of change.

But DA spokesman Ian Ollis said her “shrill” response in calling for drastic measures was “an overstatement”.

The employment equity targets pretty much seek to achieve 73 percent representation of Africans in all levels of companies and whites at 12 percent, roughly their demographic representation. At “top management” Africans made up 12.7 percent in 2010, up from 11.3 percent in 2006. Coloureds were actually down from 4.7 percent to 4.6 percent, Indians were up from 6.2 percent to 6.8 percent while whites dropped ever so slightly from 74.9 percent to 73.1 percent.

Commission chairwoman Mpho Nkelo said the ideal figure was demographic representation of 73.6 percent for Africans, 11 percent for coloureds, 3.2 percent for Indians and 12.1 percent for whites.

Whites were hugely overrepresented, she complained, at this level and Indians were also hugely advantaged in the top management of companies.

Ollis acknowledged that the transformation of top management was slow and required attention, but he suggested that Oliphant should have pointed out that “at many levels targets had been achieved”. Black people now accounted for 86 percent of employees in South Africa and the commission’s report points out that blacks “at 70.2 percent and women at 43.7 percent appear to be the most represented” at skilled worker level.

“These achievements are milestones in transformation that should be lauded which the minister fails to do.”

The figures for the next level in companies – defined as senior management showed “a gradual drop” even in the commission’s interpretation. Whites dropped from 70.9 percent to 64.1 percent between 2006 and 2010. Africans rose from 13.4 percent to 17.6 percent in this time while coloureds rose from 5.8 percent to 6.9 percent and Indians rose from 7.7 percent to 9.1 percent.

At professionally qualified level Africans made up 31 percent up from 20.2 percent in this time. Coloureds rose from 8 percent to 10.4 percent, almost reaching their ideal representation while Indians rose from 8.3 percent to 8.8 percent, once again outstripping their ideal level. Whites dropped significantly from 62.2 percent in this category to 47.7 percent. The commission said this showed “a gradual decrease”.

In the skilled level whites slipped dramatically from being the largest group at 40.4 percent in 2006 to just 28.5 percent in 2010. Indians dropped from 6.6 percent to 6.2 percent, coloureds rose from 12.6 percent to 13 percent – over their ideal representation while Africans rose from 39.2 percent to 51 percent.

Ollis said the reason for the minister’s overreaction was “obviously the political context in which the ANC Youth League, Cosatu and the other tripartite alliance members have been calling for extreme measures to transform the economy recently”.

He suggested that “knee-jerk” reactions would not remedy the transformation of boards and senior management of companies.

“The transformation in the private sector is on track if the report is accurate.”

Ollis suggested that the higher education department “must step up measures at this level in partnership with business to address the problem, rather than crying wolf or scare tactics as the minister has done”.

Cosatu spokesman Patrick Craven said it was “angered” by the commission’s report showing minimal progression for blacks.

“It is a national disgrace that we have done so little after 17 years of democracy to reverse the racial imbalances we inherited from the days of apartheid. The Employment Equity Act is failing abysmally to transform the discrimination inherited from apartheid.”

In the private sector most employers do not even submit employment equity reports “and those that are submitted reveal that virtually nothing has changed”.

Not so, said largely white trade union Solidarity. Taking a longer view, Solidarity deputy general secretary Dirk Hermann said white male representation dropped by more than 16 percentage points at the top level and 19 percentage points at the senior level over 10 years “and yet the pace of transformation is still criticised”. He pointed out that top management represented only 0.8 percent of all employees covered in the survey.

The commission was not following the instructions of the Employment Equity Act which said that compliance with employment equity “should be determined by considering the composition of the economically active population and the pool of suitably trained persons, the impact of current and possible future economic and financial factors as well as the number of current and expected vacant positions”.

The government, however, has threatened large fines on turnovers of companies if they did not get their racial composition transformed.

The commission received 18 534 reports from companies with more than 50 employees. This represented 5.2 million employees. Of these 601 000 were temporary workers and 4.6 million permanent.

Top management constituted 42 500 which which white males made up 25 000 and white women 5 200. African males made up nearly 4 000 and African females 1 500.

Africans dominated the semi-skilled and unskilled levels. There were 1.8 million semi-skilled workers and 970 000 unskilled workers. Of the former category 876 000 were African males and 466 000 African females compared with just 96 000 white females and 62 000 white males.

Of the unskilled workers 522 000 were African males and 280 000 African females compared with just 8 600 white males and 3 735 white females. - Donwald Pressly