ACTION REQUIRED:         Urgent Response & Participation (Input) from Members offering cross-border recruitment services = South Africans placed OFFSHORE/OVERSEAS

Dear APSO Members

As you may be aware the Department of Employment & Labour is currently finalising the draft National Labour Migration Policy and associated changes to the Employment Services Act following inputs received from initial public consultation processes, for presentation at NEDLAC. Whilst some of the concerns raised by Organised Business, including CAPES (on behalf of our industry), have been taken into consideration, there remains a specific area that impacts our industry. That of the regulations regarding Private Employment Agencies and placement of South Africans in work overseas.

The current draft proposes that before a contract of employment can be concluded, a DEL inspector must be present (with PrEA and candidate) to ensure the protection of the candidate. CAPES has already raised our concerns about the practicalities of this proposal, not least of which relates to the limited resources available to DEL and associated timeline implications for such an onerous and impractical additional step to the recruitment process.

It should be noted that through lobbying, via our representatives on the ESB, our concerns are acknowledged however, recognising the need for oversight of overseas placements made by PrES, CAPES has been requested to draft and present the proposed revision to be considered by DEL prior to NEDLAC deliberations. 

Controls need to be well considered because DEL is seeking more than a digital submission of the proposed employment contract for the overseas placement, given that there needs to be a measure to ensure protection of the work seeker.  In consideration of the CAPES proposal, we hereby request the support of members who currently participate in cross-border recruitment, specifically the facilitation of work for South Africans abroad. We would like to gather experienced insights on how this additional governance and oversight measure – which is unlikely to be negotiated away – could be addressed high-level within the policy and then more practically incorporated into related regulations, recognising the need to address both corporate and SMME agencies.

Draft NLMP 5.1.2.3 (page 77)

Regulation of Private Employment Agencies and Public Employment Agencies: Government will regulate Private Employment Agencies and Public Employment Agencies through supervision and monitoring of the recruitment activities of private employment promoters or agencies, to minimise malpractices and abuses against those seeking jobs in South Africa or abroad and in addition to the cancelation of licenses, criminal proceedings will be introduced against serious offenders. Special attention will be paid to the recruitment and deployment of categories of workers, e.g., domestic workers who are especially vulnerable to malpractice and abuse. The recruiter will have to expose the intending migrant worker to his/her contract of employment in the presence of an authorised labour official before the migrant embark on his/her journey. The NLMP supports the regulatory framework adopted to give effect to the above – in particular ES Act (2014) and the different sets of regulations adopted in terms of ES Act.

CAPES seeks to lobby and advocate for fair and effective regulation. As usual, timelines are short, and CAPES is required to have a formal position prepared by end next week. To this end, we’d like to request members’ urgent assistance in this matter.

How you can support this process:

• Attend the Zoom session early next week wherein the issue will be presented, and questions asked (by CAPES representative Bev Jack) to gain clarity on current processes and possible options to address DEL’s concerns in a pragmatic, yet administratively acceptable, manner.
• Discussions are limited to governance and oversight related to compliant and fair recruitment processes and therefore no concerns regarding anti-competitiveness.
• Individual attending the session should be operationally involved in the recruitment and placement of South Africans OVERSEAS/OFFSHORE and therefore able to share practical insights and experiences.

Session details:

Date:                     Monday 3 July 2023

Time:                     16h00 – 17h00

RSVP:                    Register for the webinar using this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0ldu2rrzguEtJxbDVVqDj5E4CsIulQ_YzY

Should you have any questions in this regard, or if you’re unable to attend the session but willing to share insights one-on-one, please contact Jacqui Ford:  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  Cell: 0834112400

Kind regards

Jacqui Ford

APSO: CEO

APSO has always had a Newsletter it sends out to Active Company Members on a biweekly basis and while it has had many iterations over the years, its goal was always the same: to inform our members on anything noteworthy happening within the Recruitment Industry and APSO itself.

The idea of a separate newsletter for the Professional Body initially came about after we found that APSO Company Newsletter could not meet the needs of our Individual Members in the following ways:

1. It catered to Business Owners and Agencies, making much of its content irrelevant to the majority of our Individual Members who are Recruiters; and while we do want to provide information for greater career growth, we do not want to inundate our Individual Members with content that they cannot incorporate into their daily professional services.
2. The Company Newsletter would only be sent to Companies or Agencies, any Individual Member not employed by an Active Company Member would not receive them and those that were needed to a rely on the APSO contact within the Company to forward the Newsletter. This lead then led to the next two (2) problems.
3. Individual Members could not gain Continuous Professional Development (CPD) points for reading the APSO Company Newsletter.
4. Individuals Members lost direct access to and information for the APSO Training Event Schedule, making a training plan for CPD Compliancy problematic.

Historically, APSO has had Professional Body (PB) Newsletters but due to system limitations, industry, and societal disruptions over the past few years it became necessary to reintegrate it back in the APSO Company Newsletter. However, this has caused the reemergence of the problems listed above, much to the chagrin of our Individual Members.

APSO’s goal when it comes CPD Compliancy is to make accumulating points as efficient as possible and while the decision to reintegrate the PB Newsletter did not sit well with us either, we had always planned to bring it back once the Recruitment Industry had calmed. Therefore, APSO is very proud to celebrate the very first edition of the PB Newsletter for 2023!

For our newer Individual Members and for the Members that need a bit of a refresher, this how the PB Newsletter works.

The PB Newsletters will be similar to the Company Newsletter, but the articles will be focused on noteworthy content that affects the recruiter’s desk. It will be available and sent out to all Active Individual Members who have not opted out APSO correspondence.

Individual Members will receive 1 CPD point for reading the APSO PB Newsletter, members may provide a screenshot of the newsletter or the newsletter’s link as verifiable proof for the CPD point.

It will have a Featured Article section, which will contain either an article from the APSO regarding any updates for the Professional Body or its Individual Members, an article by one our Individual Members or an article from one of our Endorsed Trainers or Expert Consultants. The featured article will be published on both the APSO Website and in the Newsletter; and provides a valuable opportunity for Individual Members to showcase their Industry Knowledge and receive the recognition they deserve.

Individual Members will receive 5 CPD points for submitting an article, regardless of whether the article is published in the Newsletter. Therefore, reading and contributing to the APSO PB article may award members with a minimum total of 6 CPD points.

Article submissions can be sent to Lizanne Gounden at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or loaded onto your APSO Individual Profile under the My CPD tab and adhere to the following criteria:

• Article Content must be Industry Related and Current.
• Word Count must be 500 to 1000 words, single spaced (one to two pages).
• Font must be either Times New Roman, Arial or Calibri.
• Font size must either 11 for Arial/Calibri or 12 for Times New Roman.
• If your featured article has a blurb, it must be a maximum of 2 sentences: no longer than 20 words.
• Your article must have a Heading.
• You may add Profile picture of Author. Ideal dimensions size: 400 x 400.
• While research into your article’s topic is encouraged, please be wary of and avoid every effort to plagiarise or spread misinformation.

APSO has high hopes for its newest PB Newsletter and hopes our Individual Members find it a useful source to gain and share knowledge as well as great steppingstone to acquire or fine tune skills while accumulating your CPD points.

Dear Member

As recruiters we’re accustomed to paying premium rates to access technical assessments for candidate evaluation.

How much are you currently paying? R80? R90? Maybe even R100 per assessment? Worse still, if we invest in assessing +/- 4 candidates at the end of our placement process, only one of them will provide us with a return on that investment IF they’re placed.

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• You can assess candidates as they apply, ranking themselves automatically for you,
• You will have exclusive access to a candidate’s assessment results for 28 days,
• You will have access to over 150 job assessments for the engineering, manufacturing and call centre sectors. 

If you want to be the first to present candidates to a client, and know that your candidates have the necessary skills required then book a demo of Skills Café and see for yourself. 

The APSO Conference was recently held on the 28^th of June 2019 at The Wanderers Club in Johannesburg.

Included in the amazing lineup of keynote speakers and panellists was the APSO Awards.

Read more: APSO Awards 2019