The Native Recruitment Corporation (NRC) was established in 1912 by the chamber of mines to recruit black mine labourers from South Africa, Lesotho, and Botswana. In 1942, the NRC was supplemented by nearly 400 independent recruiting agents, usually traders, with recruiting activities supervised by the government and the Native recruiting corporation. By 1940, an estimated 252 000 natives were obtained and by 1962, the mining industry had brought around 400 000 natives to the mines every year. The mining industry went on to break into two labour organisations where the Witwatersrand Native Labours Association (WNLA), formed in 1902, and the NRC, which started ten years later. With these organisations were both under the same management, their primary objectives were to recruit indigenous labourers and to facilitate their up and down movements. On January 1, 1977, the NRC and the WNLA merged to form The Employers Bureau of Africa.

Further reading:

J.S. Harington, N.D. McGlashan, and E.Z. Chelkowska, ‘A century of migrant labour in the gold mines of South Africa’, Journal of the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, March 2004. pp.65-71.