South Africans of Indian origin worry they will become unemployable as the country works to address inequalities of apartheid with black economic empowerment laws.

While Indians represent 2.5 percent of the population nationally, in KwaZulu-Natal they make up 7 percent.

With just a month to go until national elections, Indian-origin South Africans oppose a proposed employment equity bill they say will hurt their employment opportunities as a minority community in the country, according to  a report in BusinessStandard.

Regional and not national demographic figures should be used to ensure equity, members of the Indian community say.

Ebrahim Patel, director of the mostly Indian Muslim business organisation Minara Chamber of Commerce said while it agreed that transformation is necessary to address the inequalities of the apartheid era when many jobs were reserved for the ruling white minority, such change must be made without rendering some groups unemployable, according to the BusinessStandard report.

The proposed employment equity bill says companies with more than 150 employees must hire senior management and professional staff on the basis of national demographics of population groups.

In the province of KwaZulu-Natal, where the majority of South Africa’s 1.4 million Indian-origin citizens live, business and community leaders say such a law would reduce the number of jobs available to Indians because the national demographic population figure would be overwhelmingly black.

A similar objection was raised by the Coloured (mixed race) community of Western Cape
Province, home to the majority of the community, the report said.

Indian members of the ruling African National Congress objected to the proposal, BusinessStandard reports.

Indians were shipped to KwaZulu-Natal from 1860 onwards to work as indentured laborers at sugar cane plantations, according to Ravi Pillay, an ANC member and provincial minister for Human Settlements and Public Works in KwaZulu-Natal.

“Our concentration in KwaZulu-Natal is due to the vagaries of history,” Pillay said.

Others opposed to the proposed bill include Pravin Gordhan, the national Finance Minister and Logie Naidoo, a former mayor of the city of Durban.

Indians will be unfairly and unjustly prejudiced by the proposed law, said Vivian Reddy, an Indian businessman based in KwaZulu-Natal, according to BusinessStandard.

Neren Rau, VCEO of the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry, was more cautious in condemning the bill, saying more clarity was needed on whether the bill was intended for mandatory implementation or was just a recommendation.