The finance ministry has conceded that it has not conducted any research on the implications of government's proposed ban on labour broking.

In response to a parliamentary question, Treasury said it would be difficult to conduct such a study because of a lack of information on the number of workers put in jobs by labour brokers.

"The principal difficulty for conducting such a study is data," the ministry said in its written response to a question by the Democratic Alliance.

"To conduct such a study would require detailed data on the number of workers involved with temporary employment services or labour broking, the wages of these workers and some estimate for the number of workers who would lose their jobs if labour broking were to be banned."

Half a million people in temporary jobs

Treasury said official data from Statistics South Africa indicated that a mere 37 115 workers were employed by labour brokers in 2007.

This contrasts sharply with widely accepted industry estimates that half a million people work in temporary jobs obtained through labour brokers.

The ministry said without more reliable data, a study would be "unlikely to provide accurate or valid insights into the fiscal, financial and economic impact of banning temporary employment services or labour broking".

The ministry said it had used labour broking services to fill a number of temporary posts linked to short-term projects in the past three years.

In 2006, temporary employees made up 12.8 percent of its staff complement. The figure dropped by half in 2007, when it had 63 temporary staff, and rose again last year, when it hired 80.

R26m spent on temporary workers

For the three-year period, Treasury's wage bill for temporary workers at Treasury came to some R26-million.

Treasury pointed out that the department of labour is responsible for any potential policy reform around labour broking.

The labour department could not immediately be reached for comment on studies in this regard.

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