The larger contractors favour workers from Mozambique and Lesotho. The employment of subcontracted workers is highly unpredictable, irregular, insecure and unstable. The uncertainty is acute when workers are retrenched. The vast majority receive no severance package, and almost half are given no notice. They are required to leave the workplace and hostels within a matter of hours.
Mines typically give full-time workers a month's notice.
Only 14 percent of those retrenched by contractors were given one month's notice. Working conditions and compensation of subcontracted miners are generally worse than those of regular miners. As many as two-thirds of miners interviewed said they were not advised of the terms of their contract before starting their job and had not been paid the promised wages, benefits and bonuses. Others reported that agreed accommodation was also not made available. In the Vaal Reefs disaster of 1995, mineworkers on temporary contracts were not covered by death benefits and their families received very little by way of compensation.