Cape Town, 21 October 2025 South African HR and benefits platform, Jem HR , has launched Jem Mobile , a new service that gives employees access to affordable smartphones and data contracts through payroll deduction at no cost or risk to employers.
The launch addresses one of the biggest inequalities facing South Africas workforce the high cost of mobile data. Millions of people working in essential but often low-paid jobs, such as security, cleaning, retail and manufacturing, pay far more for connectivity than higher-income earners.
Most earn too little or have impaired credit records, forcing them to rely on prepaid data bundles. Spread across a month, those bundles can cost double or triple the price of a contract. The result is a system where the people who earn the least end up paying the most.