President Cyril Ramaphosa’s administration is planning to lay off 30 000 public servants in the next three years as part of the government’s cost-cutting measures.

This is according to Friday's Mail and Guardian newspaper.

The report quoted "government insiders who attended this week’s Cabinet lekgotla" as saying the Treasury has set aside R4-billion for this financial year to kickstart the process of issuing severance packages.

A senior government official with knowledge of the planned restructuring reportedly said the layoffs would reduce the government’s salary bill by R20-billion.

Government is under pressure to cut costs due to a struggling economy and ever-growing social burden.

In his inaugural state of the nation address in February‚ Ramaphosa said he would reduce the size of the Cabinet and streamline government departments.

He said later the decision to review the configuration of national departments would take several months after a "thorough analysis of the suitability and the costs of the existing configuration".