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Johannesburg - The employment tax incentive bill is a step in the right direction, the SA Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Sacci) said on Wednesday.
It should, however, include more industries, the chamber said.
"Sacci welcomes the tax incentive as a step in the right direction, but the scope of application must be set sufficiently wide to capture as many potential workplaces as possible," CEO Neren Rau said.
"From our research, it is clear that manufacturing, tourism and the services industry have a sizeable appetite to implement the incentive."
Sacci called on Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan to include the industries within the scope of the tax incentive to fast-track job creation and skills transfer.
Currently the legislation provided for the incentive to apply only to economic development zones and industries designated by the finance ministry.
Sacci conducted a survey among 35 companies and said it was excited to see the significant interest among members to make use of the incentive to employ labour market entrants.
"Among the 35 companies surveyed, which range from multinationals to SMEs and across most sectors of the economy, there is optimism towards the incentive," said Rau.
"Sacci estimates that the 35 companies alone will employ at least 160 to 216 workers if the incentive is made available to their sectors. That is an average of between four to six new hires for each business."
Rau said 88% of the businesses would be interested in using the incentive and 93% of these wanted the incentive extended beyond the proposed cut-off date of December 2016.
He said the remaining 12% of business had indicated that they currently had no need for more workers.
The bill was approved by the National Assembly last month.
It offers an employment tax incentive to registered employers with the aim of encouraging them to take on more young people in the age group 18 to 29 years.
