A car guard is an informally employed person in charge of finding parking spots for cars and ensuring the safety of those cars until their owners return. These self-employed individuals often charge a nominal fee. They may euphemistically be called parking attendants or parking assistants.
Car guarding can occur in any area where a lack of formal employment opportunities gives rise to an informal economy. While the process occurs most commonly in South African cities, it is commonplace throughout Southern Africa. Car guards deter crime by raising the probability of detection, deterring potential criminals, and inducing potential criminals to move elsewhere. [1]
South Africa has high unemployment rates and high crime rates, both violent and nonviolent - especially motor theft. Formal unemployment in South Africa is around 35%, and is expected to rise as the number of immigrants into South Africa vastly outweighs the opportunities in the formal sector. Individuals unable to find formal employment turn to car guarding as an alternative source of income. Except for the occasional article in the daily press, very little research has been done on the car guard industry in South Africa, and even less in other countries. [2]
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, self-employed car guards began to expand into sporting events, concerts, and other venues on an ad hoc basis. Several private businesses were set up that hire out vests and equipment to car guards for these events - however, they do not employ or regulate the car guards. Due to the fact that the job requires little overhead cost, this employment opportunity draws many of the 16% of South Africans employed in the informal sector. [3]
The majority of car guards are black or coloured men, with a median age of late twenties to early thirties. Many have been previously employed in the formal sector. However, they earn lower wages on average than low-income jobs in the formal sector (e.g. domestic workers or waiters). Most car guards have not completed secondary education, and find it difficult to find jobs in the formal sector due to a lack of skills or formal education. Studies find that a large proportion of car guards are immigrants from outside of South Africa, who have even more barriers to formal employment than low-income South Africans. [1]
In 2015, a comprehensive study was conducted on 144 car guards in the Pretoria region of South Africa. [4] The survey showed that 63% of the respondents were from outside South Africa while the remaining 37% indicated they were South African citizens. Of those that responded they were from outside South Africa, 63% reported they were from the Democratic Republic of Congo, followed by 19% from Zimbabwe, and 8% from Nigeria.
With respect to education, this recent survey shows, that while it is true that South Africa car guards generally had not continued their education beyond secondary school, immigrant car guards often held tertiary qualifications such as diplomas or degrees.
In 2009, there was an amendment to the Basic Conditions of Employment Act that added car guards to the section as it pertained to private security and established a minimum wage in Pretoria and Johannesburg of R2,519 per month. [5] In the 2015 survey referenced above, car guard earnings were also examined. The results showed that approximately 37% of those surveyed earned between R50-100 and 34% reported daily income of between R101-150. This appears to be generally aligned with the mandated minimum wage established in 2009. However, while car guards can potentially earn R4,500/month, there are additional fees that they must pay as "bay-fees" to shopping mall owners, agency fees, if applicable, and uniform rental fees. These additional fees can reduce daily wages below the prescribed minimum wage, or even into a negative daily rate being earned.
Because this process is almost completely unregulated, when one parks their car in an area with car guards, they have no guarantee of the guard's reliability. Many South Africans report being threatened by their car guards, or that the guards have often been old or infirm people who would have been unable to provide effective protection. Conversely, people working as car guards have no way of guaranteeing that they will get paid - many guards reporting being promised payment that they never receive. [3] In this transaction, neither customer nor guard has any way of holding the other accountable. While the customer could put themselves at risk, the position is also dangerous for the guard, with some guards reporting receiving threats from car thieves and vagrants. Some car guards report that they prefer to go to "white events" over "black events," saying that they make more money at white events. [3]
In Cape Town, the car guarding industry is becoming increasingly formalised, with the municipality increasingly employing people to collect money for parking instead of utilizing parking meters. McEwen and Leiman argue that the nature of the industry has changed from "a survival activity of the local homeless and unemployed to one often typified by relatively capable and qualified local and regional migrants." [1]
Car guards in Egypt are known as sayes (السايس; singular, plural soyas). Some municipalities of Cairo began to license and regulate sayes in 1980. [6] Roles of Egyptian car guards vary from informal parking valets who actually park the car on the owner's behalf, to simply watching the car to prevent vandalism. [7] Because of their knowledge of the street, sayes are often used by the police as informers. [7] The sayes role has often provided a lifeline for unemployed Egyptians. [6]
In 2018, the Parliament of Egypt enacted legislation to license and regulate the sayes profession nationwide. [8] The law provides for a maximum fee that a sayes may charge, to be set by the Ministry of Local Development, and imposes fines for violations. [8] The law was part of a broader campaign to formalize Egypt's vast informal economy. [9] Additional legislation to further regulate parking practices, with the potential to eliminate the sayes profession entirely, was proposed in 2020. [10]
In Mozambique, car guards work in groups to prevent thieves from stealing items such as mirrors from parked vehicles. Each group is run by a chefe, or boss, who divides parking areas into zones and assigns guards to each zone. The chefe also serves as a liaison between the guards and the police. [11]
In Namibia, car guards that work in semi-private parking areas, such as malls or shopping centers, must actually pay the shopping center to work there. Consumer tipping of car guards is also not compulsory, minimizing the profits earned by the car guards themselves. [12]
The economy of Lesotho is based on tourism, manufacturing, mining, and agriculture, and depends heavily on remittances from its diaspora. Lesotho, a lower middle income country, is geographically surrounded by South Africa and is economically integrated with it as well. A significant portion of the population subsists on farming with a gradual ongoing transition into tourism and manufacturing.
The economy of Namibia has a modern market sector, which produces most of the country's wealth, and a traditional subsistence sector. Although the majority of the population engages in subsistence agriculture and herding, Namibia has more than 200,000 skilled workers and a considerable number of well-trained professionals and managerials.
The economy of South Africa is a mixed economy, emerging market, and upper-middle-income economy, one of only eight such countries in Africa. The economy is the most industrialised, technologically advanced, and diversified in Africa. Following 1996, at the end of over twelve years of international sanctions, South Africa's nominal gross domestic product (GDP) almost tripled to a peak of US$416 billion in 2011. In the same period, foreign exchange reserves increased from US$3 billion to nearly US$50 billion, creating a diversified economy with a growing and sizable middle class, within three decades of ending apartheid.
An informal economy is the part of any economy that is neither taxed nor monitored by any form of government. Although the informal sector makes up a significant portion of the economies in developing countries, it is sometimes stigmatized as troublesome and unmanageable. However, the informal sector provides critical economic opportunities for the poor and has been expanding rapidly since the 1960s. Integrating the informal economy into the formal sector is an important policy challenge.
Employment is a relationship between two parties regulating the provision of paid labour services. Usually based on a contract, one party, the employer, which might be a corporation, a not-for-profit organization, a co-operative, or any other entity, pays the other, the employee, in return for carrying out assigned work. Employees work in return for wages, which can be paid on the basis of an hourly rate, by piecework or an annual salary, depending on the type of work an employee does, the prevailing conditions of the sector and the bargaining power between the parties. Employees in some sectors may receive gratuities, bonus payments or stock options. In some types of employment, employees may receive benefits in addition to payment. Benefits may include health insurance, housing, and disability insurance. Employment is typically governed by employment laws, organisation or legal contracts.
Southern Africa is the southernmost region of Africa. No definition is agreed upon, but some groupings include the United Nations geoscheme, the intergovernmental Southern African Development Community, and the physical geography definition based on the physical characteristics of the land.
Self-employment is the state of working for oneself rather than an employer. Tax authorities will generally view a person as self-employed if the person chooses to be recognised as such or if the person is generating income for which a tax return needs to be filed. In the real world, the critical issue for tax authorities is not whether a person is engaged in business activity but whether the activity is profitable and therefore potentially taxable. In other words, the trading is likely to be ignored if there is no profit, so occasional and hobby- or enthusiast-based economic activity is generally ignored by tax authorities. Self-employed people are usually classified as a sole proprietor, independent contractor, or as a member of a partnership.
A salary is a form of periodic payment from an employer to an employee, which may be specified in an employment contract. It is contrasted with piece wages, where each job, hour or other unit is paid separately, rather than on a periodic basis. Salary can also be considered as the cost of hiring and keeping human resources for corporate operations, and is hence referred to as personnel expense or salary expense. In accounting, salaries are recorded in payroll accounts.
In macroeconomics, the labor force is the sum of those either working or looking for work :
Beitbridge is a border town in the province of Matabeleland South, Zimbabwe. The name also refers to the border post and bridge spanning the Limpopo River, which forms the political border between South Africa and Zimbabwe. The border on the South African side of the river is also named Beitbridge.
Trade unions in South Africa has a history dating back to the 1880s. From the beginning unions could be viewed as a reflection of the racial disunity of the country, with the earliest unions being predominantly for white workers. Through the turbulent years of 1948–1991 trade unions played an important part in developing political and economic resistance, and eventually were one of the driving forces in realising the transition to an inclusive democratic government.
uPhongolo Municipality is a local municipality within the northern area of the Zululand District Municipality, in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa.
Unreported employment, also known as money under the table, working under the table, off the books, cash-in-the-claw, money-in-the-paw, or illicit work is illegal employment that is not reported to the government. The employer or the employee often does so for tax evasion or avoiding and violating other laws such as obtaining unemployment benefits while being employed. The working contract is made without social security costs and does typically not provide health insurance, paid parental leave, paid vacation or pension funds. It is a part of what has been called the underground economy, shadow economy, black market or the non-observed economy.
Franeleros are people who have as main activity guarding or keeping an eye on cars parked in several streets in certain places in large Mexican cities, getting a tip as a reward, which sometimes is established by them. The term comes from the Spanish word franela, meaning flannel, which is a small piece of soft light fabric which they use to wash the cars if they are asked to, or to simply wave it around to give parking indications. Franeleros are sometimes also known as cuida-coches or "viene vienes", which is the phrase they commonly say while giving the parking indications. In 2007, due to the criticisms around this controversial "occupation" this guarding activity became illegal in Mexico City, but it is still widely practiced. In areas where parking meters have been installed, franeleros no longer operate.
Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) is a blanket term for a type of subsistence mining involving a miner who may or may not be officially employed by a mining company but works independently, mining minerals using their own resources, usually by hand.
Social protection in sub-Saharan Africa tends not to be very developed and yet the growth of some of the region's economies and concerted attempts to tackle poverty mean that this situation may change considerably in the future.
Female participation and advancement in majority Muslim countries, or nations in which more than 50% of the population identifies as an adherent of the Islamic faith, have traditionally been areas of controversy. Several Western nations, such as the United States and Western Europe, have criticised majority Muslim nations for the lack of involvement and opportunity for women in the private sector.
Parking in Mexico City is a mix of street parking controlled by franeleros or parking space holders, but in some areas meters have been introduced. According to a survey by IBM, Mexico City had North America's worst parking and tied for 10th worst in the world, to IBM's survey, with 73 per cent of drivers in Mexico City having had to abandon their search for parking at some point during the previous 12 months.
Statistics on unemployment in India had traditionally been collected, compiled and disseminated once every ten years by the Ministry of Labour and Employment (MLE), primarily from sample studies conducted by the National Sample Survey Office. Other than these 5-year sample studies, India had historically not collected monthly, quarterly or yearly nationwide employment and unemployment statistics on a routine basis. In 2016, the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, a non-governmental entity based in Mumbai, started sampling and publishing monthly unemployment in India statistics.
Labour hire is a form of employment in which an employer directs their de jure employees to perform work at an external workplace, belonging to a client of the legal employer.
