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Independent contractor or employee?

by Steve - Posted 20 July 2005

In the past decade, there has been a lot of labour legislation passed to regulate the South African workplace. (e.g. Basic Conditions of Employment, Labour Relations Act, Employment Equity Act) Compliance with these and other Acts obviously increases the cost of doing business. At the same time telecommuting and other trends are reshaping the traditional office-bound, 9 to 5, notion of work.

The effect of these trends is that more and more companies are moving towards treating their human resources as independent contractors or freelancers rather than as employees. But in making this distinction, a number of legal issues arise, including issues relating to tax, vicarious liability and intellectual property ownership.

How can you tell whether a service relationship is one of employment or not? Check out some useful guidelines.