The Part Nobody Prepares You For

You can find a hundred articles telling a South African family how to hire a domestic worker. You will find almost nothing that tells you how to end it.

So it sits there. The family is emigrating, or the income has changed, or something has gone wrong that has not fixed itself over months of hoping it would. And the question underneath it is almost never what do I want to do. It is what am I allowed to do, and how do I do this without causing more harm than I have to.

 Most of the answer is not law. It is not tripping over your own feet.

What Goes Wrong

You decide first and tell her second. If you are ending it because of your circumstances — you are moving, you cannot afford it, the children have grown — you are required to talk to her before the decision is made, not after. In a home that is one honest letter and one real conversation. An announcement is not a consultation, and this is the most common reason a household that paid properly and meant well still ends up at the CCMA.

You file nothing with UIF. You have to declare the termination on a UI-19, through uFiling. Without it her claim does not process — she can do everything right on her side and it will simply sit there, because your side of the record still says she works for you.

You call it a resignation when it was not one. Never. It is a false declaration on a form you sign, it cuts her out of UIF entirely because a worker who resigns cannot claim, and it hands her a strong case against you. It is the most expensive thing on this page.

 You give her nothing to show for it. She is entitled to a certificate of service. Give it to her without being asked. In a sector with almost no formal record-keeping, that page is very often the only proof she has that fifteen years of her working life happened at all.

But a certificate of service is not a reference, and the difference matters. The certificate states facts — her name, your name, the dates, what she did. It says nothing about whether she was any good at it. If the employment is ending for a reason that has nothing to do with her, then she is leaving a job she did well, but the certificate will not say so. Write the reference too. Put your number on it, and answer the phone when it rings.

Then, if you can, make some calls, too. Domestic work in South Africa moves almost entirely on word of mouth, which means the thing that actually gets her working again is usually not the letter in her bag. It is a message from you to three people you know or on a neighborhood Whatsapp group. It costs you an afternoon, and it can be the difference between a week without income and six months of it. When the ending was about your circumstances rather than her conduct, this is the part worth making a real effort.

Then Check with an Employment Lawyer

The detail is where households get stuck: what is actually owed her, whether this is a retrenchment or a dismissal, how her notice and her leave interact, what happens if she lives on your property, how a settlement is drawn so that it is final, etc.

Every one of those is an hour or so of a lawyer's time, and it is not expensive relative to what it protects. There is a version of household management that treats calling a professional as an admission of failure. It is the same instinct that has you open the DB board yourself rather than call an electrician, and it is wrong for the same reason. 

We are not going to pretend a blog post can do that job. It cannot. The posts that try are the reason families get this wrong confidently.

The Relief

Read all of that at the worst possible moment and it can feel like a lot to hold.

But look again at what it asks of you. Talk to her before you decide. File the form. Tell the truth on it. Give her the certificate, and the reference she earned. Make the calls you can make. Get help with the rest.

None of that is a test of character. It is a sequence — and a sequence can be prepared for long before you need it. That is the quiet thing about households that handle an ending well. They are almost never the ones who were better people on the day. They are the ones whose payslips were already being issued, whose leave was already being tracked, whose UIF was already being filed. They arrive at a hard conversation with the paperwork already behind them, and so the only thing left to do on the day is the human part.

Which is hard enough on its own. It does not also need to be a scramble.

This post is general guidance, not legal advice, and it is deliberately not exhaustive. Domestic employment in South Africa is governed by Sectoral Determination 7 for the domestic worker sector, by the Basic Conditions of Employment Act and by the Labour Relations Act, and the details of how they interact are genuinely technical. If you are ending an employment relationship — particularly a long one, a live-in one, or a disputed one — speak to a qualified employment lawyer. That is the honest recommendation, and it is the one we would give a friend.

Sources

1. Sectoral Determination 7: Domestic Worker Sector (2002) — sets the conditions specific to this sector, including notice, payment on termination, accommodation on termination, severance and the certificate of service. Where it and the Basic Conditions of Employment Act cover the same ground, Sectoral Determination 7 applies. https://www.saflii.org/za/legis/consol_reg/sd7dws457/

2. Basic Conditions of Employment Act 75 of 1997 — section 57 provides that where a matter is regulated by both the Act and a sectoral determination, the sectoral determination prevails. https://www.saflii.org/za/legis/consol_act/bcoea1997309/

3. Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995 — governs whether a dismissal was fair, including the consultation required before a retrenchment and the rule that the employer must prove the dismissal was fair. https://www.saflii.org/za/legis/consol_act/lra1995188/

4. Unemployment Insurance Act 63 of 2001 — sets out the reasons that qualify a worker to claim. Resignation is not among them. https://www.saflii.org/za/legis/consol_act/uia2001277/

5. UI-19: Employer's Declaration of Employees, Department of Employment and Labour — the form on which a household declares the termination date and reason. Submitted via uFiling. https://ufiling.labour.gov.za

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How much notice must I give a domestic worker in South Africa?

One week if she has been employed for six months or less, and four weeks if she has been employed for longer. That is the minimum — you can give more. Notice must be in writing, and if she cannot understand the letter, it must be explained to her in a language she does understand.

2. Do I have to talk to her before I decide?

Yes, if you are ending it because of your own circumstances — relocating, affordability, the role falling away. A genuine conversation is required before the decision, not an announcement after it. This is the step households skip most often, and it is the one that most often costs them.

3. What do I have to do about UIF?

Declare the termination — the date and the reason — on a UI-19, submitted through uFiling. It is a legal obligation, not a courtesy, and her claim does not process without it. A worker who resigns cannot claim, which is why a household must never record a retrenchment as a resignation.

4. Do I have to give her a reference?

No — a reference is not a legal obligation. The certificate of service is. But the two are not the same thing: the certificate records the facts of the job, and says nothing about how well she did it. If the employment is ending because of your circumstances rather than her conduct, write the reference as well, put your contact number on it, and be willing to take the call. Domestic work is found almost entirely through word of mouth, so a message from you to a few families you know is often worth more to her than the letter itself.

5. When should I speak to an employment lawyer?

Any time it is not straightforward — and it is usually not straightforward. What is actually owed, whether it is a retrenchment or a dismissal, how notice and leave interact, a live-in arrangement, a settlement you want drawn properly, or anything she disputes (or could dispute). It is an afternoon of someone's time, and it is cheap relative to what it protects. 

Start free. Cancel anytime. R50/month. The House Keeper keeps the payslips, the leave record and the UIF filings current from the first day — so that if the last day ever comes, the paperwork is already behind you.