SA sends buses out for migrantsIt’s not just in India that industry is worried about how to lure migrant workers back to jobs after an unplanned covid-19 lockdown left thousands of them without food and money.
South Africa’s gold and platinum miners are racing to bring back thousands of skilled migrant workers who are crucial to production, following the easing of lockdown.
For 150 years, South Africa’s mines have relied on cheap labour from Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Botswana. They account for 10% of the industry’s 450,000 workers, estimates Bloomberg.
Mining companies have started a huge logistics operation to bus migrant workers back from their homes, and quarantine and test them.