Virtually every sector in South Africa that relies on skilled labour is facing a skills shortage, the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) said on Monday.
”There is clearly a skills crisis,” said SAIRR’s Marius Roodt, who released a report last week that indicated the country was facing a ”dire” skills crisis.
”The first step in tackling the current shortages of vital skills will be to acknowledge the problem instead of playing the race card at every opportunity, as some commentators insist on doing,” said Roodt.
”In order to begin solving the skills crisis, the institute recommends that racialised employment legislation be scrapped [and] the current rigid and bureaucratic immigration regime be relaxed so as to make it easier to import skills into South Africa.”
He said there also needed to be intensified marketing of the nation abroad in order to attract skilled migrants to the country.
He said there were a number of sectors where massive skills deficits were looming, such as architecture, accounting, engineering, teaching, information and communication technology.
It was estimated that there were 200 000 unemployed tertiary graduates, with 36 000 of these holding degrees, said Roodt.
”The reason for these graduates’ unemployment can probably be linked to the types of degrees they hold, with a large number of them holding general commerce degrees.”
He said a large proportion of the unemployed graduates also lacked communication and English language skills.
”Graduates need to be equipped not only with academic degrees, but qualifications that will make them attractive to potential employers, as well as giving them the skills to function in the modern workplace.”
Roodt said the government should be applauded for schemes such as the Joint Initiative on Priority Skills Acquisition.
But ”clearly more needs to be done to plug the skills gap”, he said. — Sapa