When employment ends, you need to give the right notice, pay the employee everything they are owed, and put the correct documents in place. AskMandla walks you through all of it on WhatsApp: it confirms the reason, writes the termination letter, works out the final pay including any leave due, updates the payslip, and prepares a UI-19 form so the employee can claim UIF if they qualify.
When does employment end?
Employment between an employer and a domestic worker can end in a few ways:
- Resignation - the employee chooses to leave
- Termination - the employer ends the working relationship
- Desertion - the employee stops coming to work without notice
- Retrenchment - the role is no longer needed for financial or operational reasons
- Mutual termination - the employer and employee agree to end the working relationship
AskMandla helps you manage this process legally, respectfully, and with all the documents in place.
Notice periods
South African labour law requires written notice. For a domestic worker, how much depends on how long the person has worked for you:
| Length of service | Required notice |
|---|---|
| 6 months or less | 1 week |
| More than 6 months | 4 weeks |
Notice can only be skipped when you dismiss for serious misconduct, after a fair process. Other dismissals, including ones that follow a disciplinary process, still need notice or pay instead of notice.
If you dismiss because of ill health or retrenchment, notice is owed: the employee works it, or you pay it instead.
What AskMandla does when you end employment
We help you:
- Confirm the reason for termination
- Generate the correct termination letter
- Calculate the final pay, including any leave due
- Update the payslip
- Complete and share a UI-19 form for UIF claims
All of this is done over WhatsApp, with no paperwork required.
Final payout
When employment ends, the employee is entitled to:
- Salary for all days worked
- Payment for unused leave, if they have been employed longer than 4 months
- Notice pay, if you are paying the notice instead of having them work it
Everything is due within 7 days of the job ending.
You cannot take money off the final pay for damage to property, or for notice the employee did not work, even if the contract says so. The law for domestic workers allows only a short list of deductions. If you lent the employee money or paid wages in advance, you can take back no more than a tenth of the wage each payday, so you cannot take the whole balance off the final pay.
UIF: what must be submitted
To help the employee claim UIF, we will:
- Generate a UI-19 form
- Fill in details like the last working day, the reason for termination, and the leave payout
- Send a WhatsApp link so you can download the file
As the employer, you must tell UIF that the job has ended, with the correct reason, before the 7th of the next month (submit by the 6th to be safe). We can also help you with where and how to submit this to the Department of Employment and Labour.
What if the employee disappears (desertion)?
If the employee stops coming to work without contacting you, the law does not set a number of days after which the job ends by itself. What to do:
- You do not have to pay for days they are away without permission.
- Try every number you have, and keep a record of each attempt.
- Tell them in writing what you are concerned about, and give them a fair chance to explain, in case there is an emergency behind it.
- Only then, if there is no reasonable explanation, end the employment through a fair process. AskMandla can draft a desertion letter for you to sign and send.
We will help you document the steps correctly to protect both parties.
If an explanation arrives after you have ended the employment, you still have to consider it. If the employee was absent for a legitimate reason, such as being in hospital, the dismissal may not stand. If they were in prison, the law treats the absence as incapacity, and incapacity has its own process.
Record-keeping
Contracts, payslips and termination letters are stored in your AskMandla profile and can be retrieved at any time. Keep your own copies of any warnings you give. You will always have a clean paper trail.
Treat terminations with dignity
Even when things end, keeping communication respectful and legal helps you avoid disputes, keeps the employee eligible for UIF, and protects your reputation as a fair employer.