Originally established by the Unemployment Insurance Act No. 30 of 1996 (as amended in 2001 and 2002) the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) is a social initiative by the South African government aimed at providing financial relief to individuals who have lost their jobs or are currently unable to work due to circumstances such as maternity leave, illness or adoption procedures. Managed under the auspices of the Department of Employment and Labour, the UIF requires employers to contribute 2% of their worker\u2019s gross monthly salary (1% of which is contributed by the employee and 1% contributed by the employers).<\/p>\n
These payments are pooled together in one fund from which disbursements are now made to former contributors who find themselves out of a job. UIF is available to all South African employers and employees. Properly documented foreigners<\/a> working in the country can also contribute to and make claims from the benefit if need be. Some categories of workers are excluded from the UIF and they include people who work less than 24 hours a month. Political office holders from the national to local level and people who enter the country for the purpose of carrying out a contract of service or apprenticeship<\/a>, etc are also not eligible for UIF. The UIF has indeed made and continues to make a difference in the lives of millions of South Africans. Read to discover ways in which you can contact them.<\/p>\n You can contact UIF offices through various means, including a dedicated call center and their official email address. You can also pay them a visit if your issue is not one that can be resolved online or in a situation where you have previously tried their communication channels but got no response.<\/p>\n One of the ways to get in touch with UIF is through their call center with the telephone number \u2013 0800030007. Therefore, if you are a recently unemployed person who wants to find out whether you can make a claim or perhaps you have already applied and not received any payment yet, then you can readily call them via this channel. If you also want to know your payment status, then this is the channel for you. The UIF call center operates from 7:30 am to 4 pm daily from Monday to Friday<\/a>. It is therefore not available 24\/7 and as such, you should make your inquiries at the earliest time possible.<\/p>\n As is common knowledge, getting through to any organization\u2019s call center can take some time and this is the same thing with the UIF call center. A November 2020 parliamentary investigation discovered that there was a massive backlog at the UIF call center and they lacked the capacity to deal with emails, online applications, and calls from the public. The investigation uncovered that they were only eight call center agents attending to emails leading to a backlog of 440,000 emails. They also uncovered the fact that the UIF gets about 30,000 calls per day but can only attend to 3,000. They, therefore, called on the supervisory Department of Labor to improve the UIF’s ICT capacity.<\/p>\n Another way you can readily get in touch with UIF is through their email addresses. In a situation whereby your inquiry is not so urgent, you can always shoot them off a mail. Such inquiries could relate to matters such as how to sign a return form electronically, how to access your returns and payment history, how to upload your internet banking account details to the platform, and the stage of one\u2019s claim, etc. Of course, you can shoot off an email at any point of the day meaning that this channel of communication with the UIF can be said to be available 24\/7. It will however take time though before you get a response.<\/p>\n Please use the link below to check the list of entities that have already received the COVID-19 TERS Benefit.#StayHome<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0#Workingforyou<\/a>https:\/\/t.co\/144EwL8Px6<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/VZNliPYHfZ<\/a><\/p>\n — UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE FUND (UIF) (@UIFBenefits) April 29, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\nHow Do I Contact UIF Offices?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Through Their Call Centre \u2013 0800030007<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Through Email \u2013 uifcontactcenter@alteram.co.za and uifcomplaints@labour.gov.za<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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