[imagesource: Facebook / Dis-Chem]

Dis-Chem’s moratorium on hiring white people to improve its employment equity profile a few weeks back was met with a decidedly mixed reaction.

Founder and CEO Ivan Saltzman announced the company’s decision in an internal letter dated September 19, which was later leaked. In it, he pointed out that because the pharmaceutical retailer is listed on the JSE, the company could be liable for crippling fines for noncompliance with the Employment Equity Act.

I’ll spare you the usual political toing and froing and cut straight to the Moneyweb article published on Monday, headlined ‘No wonder Dis-Chem boss wrote that memo…’.

The article states that there is limited information on the composition of Dis-Chem’s workforce in its annual report, which reports that just under 85% of its roughly 20 000 employees are black, Indian, or coloured. It also states that 63% are female.

However, buried in the group’s consolidated environment, social and governance (ESG) data table for 2022 is a view of just how poorly the group is performing when it comes to the transformation of its leadership team.

Astonishingly, just 5% of Dis-Chem’s “top and senior management” are women and only 11% are defined as “Historically Disadvantaged South Africans” (HDSAs).

…practically nine out of every 10 top and senior managers at Dis-Chem Group are white. It does not disclose how many management positions fall into the ‘top’ and ‘senior’ categories…

Dis-Chem has not a single black executive director.

Those numbers are in stark comparison to the Clicks Group, which is also listed on the JSE.

The company’s 2021 sustainability report states that Clicks had five white male managers out of 12 in top management, and 31 white male senior managers out of 92.

I won’t dig deeper into the numbers because you get the point and can read the full article here. Instead, let’s head to the comments section to see which are ranked top.

Suffice it to say, readers are not happy:

Yes, sensei. Usually one has to scroll to find the first mention of Hitler and the Holocaust in a comments section.

Our man casper1 (apt, as I’m guessing his skin hue likely resembles that of the ghost) has drawn on some deadly diseases of days gone by:

Quick poll – a South African white male in 2022 or suffering from leprosy in biblical times? Go!

Mactheknife wanted to make two points:

Ryk van Niekerk, Moneyweb’s editor, responded by pointing out that the site’s advisor service is a subscription service and relies on registered financial advisors signing up themselves.

Despite the uproar, Dis-Chem’s interim results for the six-month period ending August 31 this year show revenue growth of 9,3% to R16,3 billion over the corresponding half-year period.

Looks like casper1’s boycott may be pissing into the wind.

[source:moneyweb]