Immigration legislation needs to be passed urgently to facilitate the flow of finance managers, IT personnel and engineers into the country
Glenda Daniels
Over the past year South Africa lost more professionals than during any similar period in the past 60 years, according to the South African Institute of Race Relation’s latest report on the labour market.
The institute’s figures are reinforced by Statistics South Africa, which recently reported that 54 000 skilled people have left the country since 1994 but only 29 000 have entered the country.
Last year alone 10 140 people left for other pastures, says the institute’s report. “Not only was this the seventh net annual loss in a row, it was also the highest figure since 1940.”
However, almost three times as many people emigrate as are recorded in official statistics, says the South African Network of Skills Abroad, a research group based at the University of Cape Town an indication that the 54 000-figure is highly conservative.
Now even the government is conceding that the official numbers of people emigrating is low. Fifty-four thousand people “is probably a conservative estimate” says Ian Macun, director of the skills development unit in the Department of Labour. But rather than blame long-stalled immigration legislation delays, he says: “Ultimately we have to fast-track skills development”.
The upshot is that South Africa is left with an escalating skills shortage, especially in IT personnel, engineers, and finance and other managers. These skills, experts say, cannot be replenished at the same speed people are leaving.
Compounding this gloomy picture is that the Immigration Bill has still not been passed and the latest economic growth figure sagged to 1,2% for the third quarter of this year. Delays in the passing of the Bill include disagreement over details between the Department of Home Affairs and other departments.
The call to fast-track immigration legislation, which will relax laws for foreign skilled personnel to enter the country, could not be more urgent according to some development organisations. Say Ann Bernstein of the Centre for Development and Enterprises: “South Africa needs to attract skills into our economy as a matter of urgency.” The country must respond to the loss of scarce skills by encouraging immigration of people with skills that will help to grow the economy, she said.
Aubrey Mokoena, chairperson of the home affairs portfolio committee in Parliament, denies there is a “delay” with the immigration legislation, but adds that “the year has come to an end and Parliament is closed. Next year the detail of the Bill will be discussed. We will have to vote on it clause by clause. There have been problems. Home affairs has had problems in the past with ill-considered bills; for instance, the Aliens Control Bill,” he says.
This year Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad, Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana and President Thabo Mbeki have all, at different points, said that the skills shortage in South Africa was serious and that the import of skills from overseas was urgent. The example of India, which apparently has an overflow of IT skills, was mentioned by government officials.
A 1998 to 2003 Human Sciences Research Council employment survey says there is a 40% growth in the demand for IT skills, although fewer than 50 000 jobs will be created over the next five years. “The trade sector is expected to be the largest creator of jobs. The vast majority of net job creation will be in the professional and managerial categories. Job losses will probably occur in the semi-skilled or unskilled category, largely because of the impact of computerisation and new technology.”
Macun says the labour department has isolated the biggest problem areas: management skills, especially finance managers; IT professionals, more so in software and programming; and engineers, particularly electrical engineers.
The race relations institute’s research indicates that last year South Africa imported 20 engineers and related technologists while 358 departed for every one gained, 18 were lost. In accounting and related professions, South Africa imported 14 and lost 358 a ratio of one to 26.
While the strategy to import skills is proving to be a comprehensive failure, government attention is focusing increasingly on enhancing local skills.
And there are training and development success stories. There is, for example, the work of Fasset, the finance and accounting services sector education and training authority, which is facilitating rapid maths and science learning in schools. Fasset is awaiting confirmation for funding from government towards a project to improve maths and accounting at school level in the Eastern Cape. This will take place through new learning materials, clinics, teacher-enrichment programmes and through setting up a school of accounting at Fort Hare university.
The aim of the project is to help learners pass higher grade maths and accounting to help reduce the drop-out rate at university level. Fasset says that, aside from a skills shortage, there is also a big racial disparity of skills for example, South Africa has 211 black chartered accountants compared to more than 20 000 white chartered accountants.
Adrienne Bird, chief director of employment and skills development in the Department of Labour, says the “fast tracking” of skills development is crucial. There are 103 learnerships with about 1 000 learners. Next year the department’s aim is to have 3 000 people in learnerships. There is also R174-million in the National Skills Fund, Bird says, part of which will be used for 1 000 new bursaries early next year. She adds: “Skills development levy collection has improved significantly this year.”
Earlier this year the head of the revenue service, Pravin Gordhan, announced it was collecting R105-million a month from companies towards the skills-development levy, which funds the national skills fund. However, the problem was that not enough employers were reclaiming their grants towards training their staff.