Skill Problems in South Africa.

Connie Bruwer from PC Bruwer and Partners advises on this important topic.

Question:  South Africa’s skills shortage may not be as great as generally accepted.

Connie:  Work and unemployment figures released by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) have shown that more than three million South Africans, with at least a secondary qualification, is unemployed.

Although some of the non-working professionals have already retired or are still studying, their services can still somehow be used to increase the country’s skills levels.

The government will have to change the focus of its skills development programs.

Question:  How can it be done?

Connie:  Instead of developing skills for people who already work, an audit should be done of the skills needed, and how the skills of those who do not work, can be honed for this purpose.

In addition, the right structure for the development of these skills must be quickly established.

It appears from SSA’s new quarterly labour force survey (QLFS), that 9.833 million South Africans were well schooled in the second quarter.

Question:  What does this include?

Connie:  This includes at least a matric or equivalent qualification, and further tertiary education.

Of these, 63.5% had jobs, while 14.8% (1.453 million) were unemployed and 2,139 million (21.7%) were economically inactive.

Question:  Who is included in the economically inactive group?

Connie:  The economically inactive group include those who have graduated, are retired, work at home, or who are medically ill / unfit for work as well as the disheartened who stopped looking for work.

The figures show that in many areas the country’s skills shortage can be solved more easily than initially thought.

Prof. Charlotte du Toit of the Department of Economics at the University of Pretoria says several initiatives are needed to address the skills shortage.

Question:  What does this involve?

Connie:  This includes a total analysis of available and required skills.

If the extent of the problem is determined, proper plans and structures can be established to tackle the problem.

She pointed out that skills of the unemployed and economically inactive are ignored in current skills development programs. Because they have, for example a particular skill, they can easily be retrained to acquire skills in a direction where there is a need.

Retirees can help with training or they can fill a gap in the short term until a larger skills pool is built.

Du Toit also suggests that a new government department should be created that focus on skills development.

Question:  What would be the result if this does not happen?

Connie:  If this does not happen, the country will still struggle to reduce unemployment effectively. According to SSA the unemployment rate has risen with 34% in the second quarter. About 80,000 jobs were created in the second quarter to bring the total number of workers at 13,729 million.

Despite the lower unemployment rate, the number of unemployed being 2556000 is still very high.