Botswana has a high unemployment rate and a constricted worker skills base.  In her 2022 budget speech, the Minister of Finance and Economic Development reported an unemployment rate of 26 percent, up from 20 percent reported by Statistics Botswana in 2019, showing the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy.  Employers can expect to engage in significant training efforts, depending on the industry, due to shortage of skills.  Retention of workers and absenteeism can pose problems.  In addition, managers often cite workforce productivity as a point of frustration.  The lack of trained local citizen professionals is generally addressed by contracting expatriates if they can secure work permits.  There is minimal labor strife in Botswana.  In 2015, there were a handful of small and peaceful strikes, the most notable of these was by a portion of BURS officials, but as with most unions across sectors, only a portion of BURS officials were unionized, allowing the GoB to maintain customs operations.

The Employment Act provides basic guidelines for employment in Botswana.  The legislation sets requirements for a minimum wage, length of the workweek, annual and maternity leave, hiring and termination.  Standards set by the Act are consistent with international best practice as described by International Labor Organization (ILO) model legislation and guidelines.

Employment-related litigation occurs and is both an example of trust in the court system and a cost to doing business in Botswana.  Employers avoid considerable expense and frustration if they observe the provisions of the Employment Act, relevant labor regulations, and prudence in advance of potential litigation.  Before a potential litigant goes to one of 11 labor courts, the parties must attempt mediation through the Department of Labor.  Court cases offering severance terms for employees laid off due to fluctuating market conditions are also common.  Section 25 of the Employment Act allows employers to terminate contracts for reducing the size of their work force, known as redundancy, using the first-in-last-out principle.  This method of terminating contracts is separate from firing for serious misconduct as specified by Section 26 of the Act. The GoB has social safety net programs in place to assist the unemployed and destitute.

Collective bargaining is common in government and the private sector, and the Labor Commissioner can grant collective bargaining authority upon request.  The largest unions are comprised of public sector workers.

In August 2016 Parliament passed a Trade Disputes Act with a list of services deemed “essential” and barred from striking that exceeds international labor standards.  The Ministry of Employment, Labor Productivity, and Skills Development is coordinating with the ILO and other partners to review labor laws to ensure they align with ILO standards.  The tri-partite labor law committee recommended that all services listed as essential be cancelled except aviation, health, electrical, water and sanitation, fire, and air traffic control services.

For U.S. companies operating in China, finding, developing, and retaining domestic talent at the management and skilled technical staff levels remain challenging for foreign firms, especially as labor costs, including salaries and inputs continue to rise. COVID-19 control and related travel measures have also made it difficult to recruit or retain foreign staff. Foreign companies also complain of difficulty navigating China’s labor and social insurance laws, including local implementation guidelines. Compounding the complexity, due to ineffective enforcement of labor laws and high mandatory social insurance contributions, many PRC domestic employers and employees will not sign formal employment contracts, putting foreign firms at a disadvantage. The All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) is the only union recognized under PRC law.  Establishing independent trade unions is illegal.  The law allows for “collective bargaining,” but in practice, focuses solely on collective wage negotiations.  The Trade Union Law gives the ACFTU, a CCP organ chaired by a Politburo member, control over all union organizations and activities, including enterprise-level unions.  ACFTU enterprise unions require employers to pay mandatory fees, often through the local tax bureau, equaling a negotiated minimum of 0.5 percent to a standard two percent of total payroll.  While labor laws do not protect the right to strike, “spontaneous” protests and work stoppages occur.  Official forums for mediation, arbitration, and other mechanisms of alternative dispute resolution often are ineffective in resolving labor disputes.  Even when an arbitration award or legal judgment is obtained, getting local authorities to enforce judgments is problematic.

The PRC has not ratified the International Labor Organization (ILO) conventions on freedom of association, collective bargaining, or forced labor, but it has ratified conventions prohibiting child labor and employment discrimination. Uyghurs and members of other minority groups are subjected to forced labor in Xinjiang and throughout China via PRC government-facilitated labor transfer programs.

In 2021, the U.S government updated its business advisory on risks for businesses and individuals with exposure to entities engaged in forced labor and other human rights abuses linked to Xinjiang. This update highlights the extent of the PRC’s state-sponsored forced labor and surveillance taking place amid its ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang. The Advisory stresses that businesses and individuals that do not exit supply chains, ventures, and/or investments connected to Xinjiang could run a high risk of violating U.S. law. In fiscal year 2021, CBP issued four Withhold Release Orders  (WROs) against PRC goods produced with forced labor. The Commerce Department added PRC commercial and government entities to its Entity List for their complicity in human rights abuses and the Department of Treasury sanctioned Wang Junzheng, the Secretary of the Party Committee of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) and Chen Mingguo, Director of the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau (XPSB) to hold human rights abusers accountable in Xinjiang. In June 2021, the U.S. Department of Labor added polysilicon for China to an update of the List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor. The Department of Labor has listed 18 goods as produced by forced labor in China. Some PRC firms continued to employ North Korean workers in violation of UN Security Council sanctions. Pursuant to UN Security Council resolution (UNSCR) 2397, all DPRK nationals earning income, subject to limited exceptions, were required to have been repatriated to the DPRK by 22 December 2019.

* Source for Host Country Data: National Bureau of Statistics 

Table 4: Sources of Portfolio Investment
Data not available.