A majority of South Africans are against the government determining which staff businesses are allowed to employ. This finding comes from a survey of 1 004 South Africans conducted by the Social Research Foundation (SRF) in June 2025.

A question in that survey was as follows: “Government should determine which staff you are allowed to employ. Do you agree or disagree with this statement?”

Amongst all participants, 74% disagreed somewhat or strongly with the statement.

When the results were broken down along racial lines 69% of black South Africans, 81% of coloured South Africans and 96% of white South Africans disagreed somewhat or strongly with the statement. While 30% of black South Africans, 18% of coloured South Africans and 4% of white South Africans agreed somewhat or strongly with the statement.

The biggest cleavage in the data appears across levels of education where 54% of participants with a Grade R to Grade 7 qualification disagreed with the statement and 46% agreed somewhat or strongly with the statement. Amongst participants with a university degree 87% disagreed somewhat or strongly and 13% agreed somewhat or strongly with the statement.