South Africa is dogged by a skills mismatch that is like a ticking time bomb, Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana said on Friday.
The economy has been generating about 76% of jobs requiring semi-skilled and skilled labour, with only 26% of generated jobs requiring labour at the low-skilled level, he told the National Union of Leather and Allied Workers in George.
While the economy has seen enormous growth, this is largely ”technologically driven”.
”This skewed growth has therefore demanded labour with intermediate to high-end skills,” he said.
Also, the apartheid education and training system had been designed to keep more than 80% of the population largely unskilled, ”or, at best, trained at the lower end of the skills pipeline”.
As a result, the country has a large number of unemployed, comprised mainly of individuals with less than a matric qualification. Most are African and female.
”A small percentage of the unemployed has a post-matric certificate, the bulk of them have a diploma or certificate and only a few have a university degree. We are sitting on a ticking time bomb which will leave no winners when it explodes.”
The minister also said employment equity is not a luxury and a consistent programme of affirmative action is needed to eradicate the disparities created by apartheid. — Sapa