Huawei Faces R1.5m Fine For Employing Too Many Foreign Workers

South Africa has asked a court to fine the local unit of China’s Huawei Technologies for breaking rules on hiring foreign workers.

About 90% of the company’s employees were foreign nationals.

The labour department said it has filed court papers seeking a fine of R1.5m or 2% of the local firm’s 2020 turnover for the alleged rule breaches.

The department said Huawei was granted a permit in accordance with provisions of the immigration regulations requiring it to employ 60% South Africans and 40% foreign nationals.

It said Huawei instead had been employing far above that number of foreign workers and had plans to hire more.

Chinese firm has also been cracked down over charges of poor working conditions and human trafficking at its factory in Johannesburg, that case is still in court.

Huawei is one of the main information and communications technology companies in SA, selling products from mobile phones, smart devices, television sets and telecom equipment to solutions in cloud computing and data storage.

It has not publicly stated the number of people it employs in SA.