Employment Equity Reporting 2026: What You Must Check

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Your construction client has 62 employees, three government contracts and an Employment Equity plan someone copied off a template last year. Reporting opens on 1 September. The Department has just told everyone it will actually be reading these.‍ ‍

The Department said it twice in one week‍ ‍

On 4 August the Department of Employment and Labour, the Commission for Employment Equity and the CCMA held a joint advocacy session on equity in workplaces at the Coastlands Hotel in uMhlanga. Dr Ntsoaki Mamashela, Director of the Department's Employment Equity Directorate, presented the key highlights of the 2026 Commission for Employment Equity report. As stated in the Media Statement, what she said about the reporting cycle is the part employers should not skim past.

Two days later, on 6 August, the Department issued a separate Media Statement appealing to employers to be diligent when handling and submitting EE reports.

Here is the statement in short:

• The 2026 reporting period is the first year of assessment for all designated employers who submit employment equity plan reports. It gives employers a base from which to measure progress towards equity in their own workforce, which means it also becomes the number every later cycle is compared against.
  Following the 2022 EE amendments, which require employers to set five year targets, designated employers must be thorough in how they develop and implement those transformation targets.

• Section 20 of the Act requires a designated employer to have an EE Plan. Since the 2022 amendments, the employer sets its own targets inside that plan.

• The plan's objectives have to be met for each year of the plan. Not by year five.

• Designated employers, described in the statement as those employing more than fifty people, are encouraged to apply for the EE Compliance Certificate immediately after submitting their EE Report.

• The certificate will not be easy to get. The Department will be thorough in assessing reports, and Dr Mamashela said employers are still submitting invalid ones. Some are copying and pasting.

• Achievement of the sector specific numerical targets, or compliance towards achieving them, is tied to access to State contracts.

Why this is a revenue problem, not an HR problem‍ ‍

Section 53 of the Employment Equity Act ties the compliance certificate to access to State contracts. No certificate, no bid. That hits construction firms, security companies, cleaning contractors, catering suppliers and ICT resellers hardest, because a large share of their order book is public sector.

‍Achievement of the sector specific numerical targets sits inside that assessment. Under the 2022 amendments, employers set their own five year targets and are then measured on annual progress towards them. As we covered when the 2025 reporting season opened, falling behind on those targets affects the ability to do business with government.‍ ‍

A designated employer is one with 50 or more employees, or turnover above the sector threshold. Plenty of your mid sized clients qualify without realising it. And you are the one holding the payroll data, the headcount split by occupational level, and the turnover figure that triggers designation in the first place.‍ ‍

‍What to do in the next three weeks‍ ‍

Reporting should open on 1 September. Work through this for every client with 50 or more staff:‍ ‍

• Pull the headcount by occupational level against race, gender and disability. Compare it to the year two figures in their EE Plan. If those figures were invented to fill a template, say so now rather than in January.

• Check the plan is signed by the CEO and that consultative forum minutes exist. Procedural gaps sink reports that would otherwise pass.

• Confirm who is registered as the EE Manager on EE Online. Old passwords do not carry over between cycles.

• Ask whether the client bids for state work. If yes, the certificate application goes in straight after submission, not in January.‍ ‍

Bill for this. It is advisory work with a measurable downside if it goes wrong, and it sits closer to the client's revenue than most of what you already invoice.‍ ‍

Two other things are open right now. The Department published a Draft Reviewed Code of Good Practice on preparing, monitoring and implementing EE Plans on 24 July, with a 60 day comment window. And the 2027 national minimum wage review closes on 4 September. Both feed into what you will be doing for these clients next year, alongside the broader amendments we covered in the Labour Law Amendment Bill.