All posts
HR

26th CEE Annual Report 2025/26: the numbers, and what they mean

Cindy Ruddeck·9 July 2026·7 min read

The Department of Employment & Labour has released two documents that together define the 2025 employment equity picture: the 26th Commission for Employment Equity (CEE) Annual Report 2025/26 and the 2025 EE Public Register (published in Government Gazette No. 54783 on 5 June 2026 under Section 41 of the EE Act). Below is what they actually say — not a summary of the summary.

The regulatory backdrop

The 2025 cycle is the first reported under the amended framework. The Employment Equity Amendment Act, No. 4 of 2022 took effect on 1 January 2025, and the two sets of EE Regulations, 2025 — including the five-year sector-specific numerical targets — took effect on 15 April 2025. Section 53 of the EEA also now bites: without a valid EE compliance certificate, a designated employer cannot contract with the State. Litigation challenging the amendments and the sector targets is ongoing; the CEE has confirmed it will continue enforcing the framework regardless of the outcome.

Top Management — still the sharpest gap

Against an Economically Active Population (EAP) benchmark of roughly 79% African, 10% Coloured, 3% Indian and 8% White, the 2025 workforce profile at Top Management looks like this:

  • White representation: 57.1% — approximately 7× the group's EAP.
  • Indian representation: 12.2% — more than 5× EAP.
  • African representation: 21.1% — about 4× *below* EAP.
  • Coloured representation: 6.4% — slightly below EAP.
  • Foreign Nationals: 3.1% at this level.
  • Male: 70.7% vs Female: 29.3% — men are more than double women, and women sit well below their 45.7% EAP.
  • Persons with disabilities: 2.5% — effectively unchanged year on year and still short of the 3% workforce-wide target now applied under the amended framework.

Split by sector, the pattern hardens: Top Management in the Private Sector is 62.0% White and 15.6% African, versus All Government at 17.2% White and 67.3% African. Females are 27.6% of Private Sector Top Management vs 35.9% in Government. The Private Sector is also the largest employer of Foreign Nationals at this level (3.3% vs 0.0% in Government).

Senior Management — same story, one rung down

  • White: 44.1% (~6× EAP), Indian: 12.5% (~5× EAP), African: 31.5% (less than half of EAP), Coloured: 8.8%, Foreign Nationals: 3.3%.
  • Male 61.4% / Female 38.6% overall — Private Sector females 37.0%, Government females 42.8%.
  • Persons with disabilities: 1.7% at Senior Management (Private Sector 1.7%, Government 1.8%).

Workforce movement — where the levers actually are

The CEE's workforce-movement table for Top Management shows where designated groups gain or lose ground:

  • Recruitment at Top Management skews African (30.4%) and Indian Male (21.7%) — recruitment is where transformation is happening.
  • Promotion at Top Management still skews White Male (32.3%) and White Female (16.0%) — internal pipelines continue to favour the incumbent group.
  • Terminations at Top Management include a disproportionate share of African Females (27.2%) — retention of Black women in senior roles remains a weak point.
  • Skills Development at Top Management is dominated by Indian Male (42.9%) and Indian Female (41.2%) — a striking concentration that employers should interrogate against their own numbers.

The 2025 EE Public Register

The Register — issued by the Minister under Section 41 of the EEA — is the official public list of designated employers that submitted EE reports (EEA2 / EEA4) under Section 21 for the 2025 cycle. It runs to 329 pages in this year's Gazette and is now routinely used by State procurement, B-BBEE verification agencies and clients doing pre-contract due diligence. Being absent from it, or listed as non-submitting, is a commercial red flag, not just a regulatory one.

Use our free EE Public Register search tool to check if your business is listed — search by company name or EE reference number, or open the full 329-page PDF.

What to do this cycle

  1. Find yourself in the Register. Confirm you are listed and that your submission status is correct.
  2. Re-baseline against the 2025 sector targets that apply to your industry — the amendments removed the ability to set your own numerical goals.
  3. Interrogate your Top and Senior Management pipeline. Recruitment is doing the heavy lifting nationally; promotion is not. If your internal promotion data looks like the national picture (White-dominant), your EE plan needs to name that barrier.
  4. Fix your disability data. 2.5% at Top Management and 1.7% at Senior Management tells the Regulator that most employers still don't have a working disability disclosure, sourcing or reasonable-accommodation process.
  5. Reconcile EEA2 & EEA4 numbers to payroll and prior years before submission — mismatches are being queried more aggressively.
  6. Get your Section 53 compliance certificate work started early — you cannot fix it the week before a tender closes.

How we can help

We support designated employers with the full EE lifecycle: workforce audits, EE committee facilitation, EE plan drafting, EEA2 and EEA4 submissions, Section 53 compliance certificate readiness, and defending Department of Employment & Labour audits and enforcement. We also run practical Employment Equity training for EE Committees, managers and HR teams on the EEA, sector targets, barrier analysis and compliance certificate readiness. For a focused review against the 2025 Register and the 26th CEE Report's findings, email cindy@hrlabourconsulting.com.

26th CEE Annual Report 2025/26

Open Download
Loading PDF…
Free tool

Search the 2025 EE Public Register

Check if your business is listed among the 15,090 designated employers in Government Gazette No. 54783. Search by company name or EE reference number, plus the full 329-page PDF.

Open the tool
Our assessment

Our assessment of the 26th CEE Annual Report 2025/26 — what employers need to know

The 2025/26 CEE Report confirms that South Africa's employment equity landscape has entered a new compliance phase. This is the first report after the Employment Equity Amendment Act came into effect, introducing 5-year sector employment equity targets and the Employment Equity Compliance Certificate for employers wanting to do business with the state.

For clients, the key message is simple: employment equity is no longer only about annual reporting. Employers now need to show measurable progress, align their EE Plans with sector targets, and be able to prove compliance.

Key points for employers

1. Small employers have less reporting pressure. Employers with fewer than 50 employees are generally no longer required to submit EE reports, unless they are organs of state or are designated through a collective agreement. This explains why the number of EE reports dropped from 29,269 in 2024 to 15,090 in 2025, while the number of employees covered only decreased from 7.7 million to 6.9 million.

2. Larger employers must take sector targets seriously. Designated employers must submit annual EE reports, align their EE Plans with the relevant 5-year sector targets, comply with the National Minimum Wage Act, and have no recent unfair discrimination finding if they want an EE Compliance Certificate. This certificate is especially important for companies doing business with government.

3. Transformation at senior levels remains a concern. The report shows that women are better represented at skilled and professionally qualified levels, but this progress is not flowing strongly enough into senior and top management. In the private sector, female representation at senior management remains low at 37%, compared with 42.8% in government.

4. Disability inclusion remains very low. Employees with disabilities make up only 1.3% of the total workforce in 2025. Representation is similarly low in both the private sector and government, meaning most employers still need stronger disability recruitment, reasonable accommodation, retention, and development strategies.

5. EE disputes are increasing slightly. The CCMA received 2,577 Employment Equity Act referrals from April 2025 to January 2026, up from 2,373 in the prior comparable period. The most common issues included arbitrary-ground discrimination, equal pay, sexual harassment, race, disability, age, and pregnancy discrimination.

6. The new EE rules are being challenged in court, but implementation continues. Several legal challenges have been brought against the amended EE framework and sector targets. However, the report notes that interim attempts to suspend the sector targets have not succeeded so far, and employers are still expected to comply unless a court orders otherwise.

Practical meaning for clients

Clients should review their current EE status now, especially if they employ 50 or more people or do business with government. The priority is to ensure that the EE Plan, workforce profile, annual targets, barrier analysis, consultation records, and reporting data are aligned and defensible.

A practical employer action plan would be:

  • Confirm whether the business is a designated employer.
  • Review the applicable sector EE targets.
  • Compare the workforce profile against national and provincial EAP benchmarks.
  • Update the EE Plan with realistic annual targets.
  • Strengthen consultation with the EE Committee.
  • Review barriers in recruitment, promotion, training, pay, disability inclusion, and workplace culture.
  • Prepare evidence for EE reporting and the EE Compliance Certificate.

One-line takeaway

Employment equity compliance in 2025/26 is now more evidence-based, target-driven, and closely linked to government contracting, so employers should move from "paper compliance" to active, measurable workplace transformation.