Skills development is the broader practice of training and upskilling employees, sitting within a South African funding and incentive system: employers pay the SDL through payroll, can recover part of it as a SETA grant by submitting a WSP and ATR, and earn B-BBEE scorecard points for qualifying training spend.
What it means
The system is designed so the same levy that funds national skills development also rewards employers who invest in training their own staff, closing the loop between what is paid and what can be recovered or scored.
Where it fits in
Every part of this chain starts with payroll: the SDL calculation determines the levy paid, and that figure is the denominator against which both the SETA grant percentage and the B-BBEE skills development element are measured.
Key rules
- Funded by the SDL, recoverable in part via SETA grants.
- Requires a WSP and ATR to claim the grant.
- Also scores points under the B-BBEE skills development element.
- The SDL figure from payroll is the base for both the grant and the scorecard measure.
