Red tape is holding up South Africa’s ability to import much-needed skills, even as the country’s ability to train future workers appears to be lacking.
The skills shortage has been identified by Asgisa, the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa, as a constraint on economic growth. In order to achieve and sustain economic growth above 6%, investment in education and skills is needed, according to Asgisa.
Gwede Mantashe, who chairs the technical working group of the Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition (Jipsa), Asgisa’s related programme, wrote last month in ANC publication Umrabulo that South Africa “is not only suffering a skills shortage; it has destroyed its training capacity over the past decade and a half”.
There are several ways in which foreign skilled workers can enter the country. The quota system for foreigners with scarce and critical skills is an annual list published by the home affairs department which allows workers to enter the country without already having a job offer.
Foreign workers who have the skills and experience listed in the quota schedule can apply for these permits. The normal work permit process applies once the quotas are exhausted or for skills that are not listed. For work permits to be granted, the employer has to show that a South African citizen with the same skills was not available for the job — an intensely bureaucratic process that companies prefer to avoid.
Companies can also transfer key workers directly from international offices to South Africa, using an intracompany transfer work permit, although one source said this could also take several months to be finalised. Although the quota system is meant to make the country more welcoming to foreigners, indications are that the take-up has been slow. Exceptional skills permits are also available, but this is aimed mainly at immigrants with academic qualifications.
Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said last week that only about 10% of the available quota for 70Â 000 skilled foreign workers was taken up last year. This year, 34Â 825 work permits are available for skilled foreigners. Mapisa-Nqakula said there had been poor communication by the department on the availability of quotas.
The quotas are decided upon by the departments of trade and industry, labour and education, said Cleo Mosana, Mapisa-Nqakula’s spokesperson. Representatives from those departments were not available to answer questions.
Most categories deal with engineers, scientists and artisans, but the schedule also allows for 2Â 500 call or contact centre managers, 250 jewellery designers, and 5Â 000 clinical and biomedical engineers and technologists. Despite South Africa’s reliance on mining, only 100 geologists and 150 geophysicists are allowed for. It seems that government has not properly consulted with business about which skills are actually needed. The SA Chamber of Business says it wasn’t asked for input, while Business Unity SA said more consultation was needed at industry level.
Immigration lawyer Julian Pokroy, who is “intimately involved” with the call centre industry, said the real need was for call centre operators with both product knowledge and foreign language skills, rather than managers.
Pokroy also disputed Mapisa-Nqakula’s claim that only 10% of quotas had been taken up last year, saying that he and his colleagues were inundated with work permit and quota applications.
Both home affairs and Jipsa have identified the delays in processing permits as a constraint on skills acquisition. Pokroy agreed, adding that there was uneven application of regulations by different regions and embassies and that the department itself was chronically short of skills.
At present, the Pretoria home affairs office takes more than three months to process an application, Johannesburg takes 30 working days, and Cape Town takes six to eight weeks. In contrast, South Africa’s Brussels embassy will process an application in two weeks. A source said that former Home Affairs minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi, who introduced the quota system, had also committed his department to processing applications within 30 days. This has been watered down to such an extent that no specific time period has to be met for processing.
These delays put South Africa at a disadvantage as skilled workers choose other destinations that are easier to get into.
South Africa’s difficulty in attracting and retaining talent is compounded by a weak education system. Azar Jammine, chief economist of consultancy firm Econometrix, said that of the 528Â 000 pupils who wrote matric last year, only 351 000 passed. In 1994, 1,6-million children started school, showing that fewer than a third completed their education within 12 years. About 85Â 000 gained matric exemptions, thus qualifying for university, but only 25Â 000 of these passed maths.
Research by economists Mike Schussler and Elize Kruger shows that the white population still makes up 52% of the working age population who hold a degree or higher qualification.
Not only university graduates are needed. The average age of artisans in South Africa is 55, with few being trained to replace them.