There is no single “domestic workers agency” in South Africa. Dozens of private placement agencies operate, and they are not a regulator – the body that registers them, polices them and handles complaints is the Department of Employment and Labour. The numbers below are the department’s own, read from labour.gov.za, and they are what you need whether you are hiring a domestic worker, working as one, or in a dispute with an agency.
Official contact channels
- Inspection and Enforcement Services: 0860 101 018 – the line for underpayment, unfair working conditions and an employer or agency breaking the law. This is the number most people actually need.
- Unemployment Insurance Fund: 0800 030 007, email [email protected], or [email protected] for uFiling queries.
- Compensation Fund: 0860 105 350 or 012 326 1570, email [email protected], for injury on duty.
- Public Employment Services: [email protected] – the free state employment service, and the branch that deals with private employment agencies.
- Head office switchboard, Pretoria: 012 309 4000. Cape Town office: 021 466 7160.
- General customer care: [email protected]
The department also publishes fax numbers alongside these, including 086 688 9835 for head office and 086 688 9836 for the Compensation Fund. They are fax lines, not alternative phone numbers. The Compensation Fund additionally lists an SMS service on 44967, which it states is a paid service.
What this organisation provides
The single most useful thing to know before you deal with any placement agency:
- A private employment agency may not charge a work-seeker a fee. Under the Employment Services Act the cost of placement falls on the employer, not on the person looking for work. An agency asking a domestic worker for a registration, placement or training fee is acting unlawfully.
- Private employment agencies must be registered with the Department of Employment and Labour. Ask for the registration before you pay anything, and report an unregistered one.
- The agency is usually not the employer. In most domestic placements the household is the employer in law, which means the UIF registration, the contract and the statutory duties sit with the household, not with the agency that made the introduction.
- Public Employment Services offers the same placement function free of charge through labour centres.
Address and operating information
- Head office: Laboria House, 215 Francis Baard Street, Pretoria, 0001, postal Private Bag X117, Pretoria, 0001.
- Cape Town office: Room 1207, 12th Floor, 120 Plein Street, Cape Town, 8000.
- Unemployment Insurance Fund: 230 Lillian Ngoyi Street, Absa Towers, Pretoria Central.
- Compensation Fund: Compensation House, 167 Thabo Sehume Street, Delta Heights Building, Pretoria.
- Office hours: 07:30 – 16:00, Monday to Friday. Labour centres are spread across the country and walk-in queues are long; go early.
Support and escalation routes
- Register the worker for UIF. A household employing a domestic worker for more than 24 hours a month must register with the UIF and contribute – 1% deducted from the worker and 1% paid by the employer. Registration and monthly declarations are done through uFiling.
- Domestic workers are covered by the national minimum wage, which was equalised with the general minimum wage, and by the Basic Conditions of Employment Act rules on hours, leave, notice and a written contract.
- Injury on duty is covered. Domestic workers fall under the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act, so a worker hurt at work claims from the Compensation Fund. Households must register as employers with the fund.
- Unfair dismissal, unfair labour practice and constructive dismissal go to the CCMA, which is free to approach and does not need a lawyer. There is a 30-day limit for referring a dismissal.
- Underpayment, no payslip, no contract or excessive hours go to Inspection and Enforcement Services on 0860 101 018, which can send a labour inspector.
- Suspected corruption in the department is reported on the fraud hotline 0860 666 883, or the Public Service Commission National Anti-Corruption Hotline on 0800 701 701.
- Confiscating a worker’s identity document, withholding wages or confining a live-in worker goes beyond a labour dispute. Those are policing matters and should be reported to the South African Police Service on 10111.
Sources
- Department of Employment and Labour contact page, labour.gov.za/Contacts, read 4 September 2026 – head office and Cape Town numbers and addresses, Inspection and Enforcement Services, UIF, Compensation Fund and Public Employment Services contacts, office hours, fax numbers and fraud hotlines.
- Employment Services Act provisions on private employment agency registration and the prohibition on charging work-seekers; Basic Conditions of Employment Act, National Minimum Wage Act and COIDA as they apply to domestic work.