Employment and Labour Minister, Thulas Nxesi, says the Temporary Employer/ Employee Relief Scheme has paid out R14 million to employees impacted by the civil unrest in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng last year.

He said this when he tabled the department's budget vote during a mini plenary of the National Assembly on Tuesday.

"In response to the July riots, TERS funded another programme: Workers Affected by Unrest (WABU). To date, over 4 000 employees were paid the relief at an expenditure of about R14 million," he said.

Nxesi said more WABU payments will be made upon completion of the due diligence process.

The Minister said, meanwhile, that in response to the jobs crisis, the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) has created and saved jobs through investment with the Industrial Development Corporation to the tune of R5 billion over five years.

This as Stats SA announced in March this year that unemployment had risen by 0.4 percentage points to 35.3 percent in the fourth quarter of last year.

"The Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) through the UIF Fund has currently approved 41 qualifying transactions totalling R2.3 billion, of which R130 million was for companies in distress and relating to job preservation.

"These transactions support SMEs, black industrialists, women-owned companies and start-ups."

Nxesi said through the UIF Labour Activation Programme (LAP), the department contributes to training of the unemployed as part of government initiatives to stimulate the...

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