A job advert says R15,000 a month, so hiring someone at that salary costs R15,000 a month, right? Not quite. I built a calculator that adds up what an employee actually costs once employer UIF, the Skills Development Levy, a Compensation Fund assessment, and whatever benefits you choose to offer are on top of a basic salary.
The part I think is actually useful, not just another UIF calculator.
It includes the Employment Tax Incentive, which most cost-to-hire calculators skip entirely. If you hire someone 18 to 29 earning under R7,500 a month, you can claim up to R1,500 a month off your PAYE bill in their first year, R750 in their second. For a young hire on a modest salary this can knock a real chunk off the effective cost, and the calculator shows both figures side by side.
It doesn’t double-count the Compensation Fund minimum. The R1,621 minimum COIDA assessment applies once to your whole payroll, not per employee, so the calculator only applies it when this is genuinely your only hire.
It separates once-off year-one costs from what you’ll actually carry every year after. Recruitment agency fees and equipment don’t recur, so they’re broken out from the ongoing monthly cost.
It shows cost per productive day, not just cost per salary day. Between public holidays, annual leave and typical sick leave, a full-time employee is realistically at their desk for about 230 of the year’s 260 weekdays, so the true daily cost is higher than a naive salary-over-workdays sum.
Try it here: Employee Cost Calculator South Africa (True Cost of Hiring)
It is general information using the current UIF, SDL, COIDA and ETI rules, not payroll or tax advice, and doesn’t model bargaining council agreements or an employee’s own PAYE. I’d be glad to hear if the ETI figure matches what your payroll system calculates, and what else would make this more useful before your next hire.