Critical skills list: Government got it wrong, says expert 

City Press – 18-02-2022

Government’s approach to prioritising the employment of South Africans has come under fire. 

Centre for Development and Enterprise executive director Ann Bernstein, says government is tackling the topic of critical skills and employment in the wrong way. Bernstein says South Africa is a country that is desperate for growth, with a shortage of skilled people, entrepreneurs, university lecturers and maths teachers. 

“We are not a country where we just have a shortage for one or two things.” Bernstein said: 

To spend an inordinate amount of time just to determine whether we need sheep shearers or business process managers is ridiculous.

“It’s not like skilled people are desperate to get into the country. We should be actively going out in the world looking for people with skills.” 

The critical question is which skilled people does South Africa not want? 

On Friday, Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi gazetted the updated critical skills list in terms of Section 19(4) of the Immigration Act. 

It outlines the skills most needed in the country and stipulates that: “Subject to any prescribed requirements, a critical skills work visa may be issued by the director-general to an individual possessing such skills or qualifications determined to be critical.”

The Immigration Act provides for the department of home affairs to regulate the “admission of foreigners to, their residence in, and their departure from the republic and for matters connected therewith must ensure that the South African economy has access at all times to the full measure of needed contributions by foreigners and that the contribution of foreigners in the South African labour market does not adversely impact on existing labour standards and the rights and expectations of South African workers”.

The update comes after Employment and Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi raised concerns last month about the hiring of foreign nationals who were in the country illegally and “illicit recruitment practices”. 

Nxesi announced that they had developed a new national labour migration policy and proposed amendments to the existing Employment Services Act.

The labour department said the changes were made to help address the country’s population expectations regarding access to work for South Africans, “given the worsening unemployment and perception or views that foreign nationals, especially those who are undocumented, are distorting labour market access.”

The changes include an updated critical skills list and plans to introduce quotas on the number of foreign nationals who can be employed in certain sectors. 

According to Stats SA, the country is currently experiencing the highest unemployment rates since the 2008. Youngsters aged 15 to 24 and 25 to 34 recorded the highest unemployment numbers of 66.5% and 43.8%, respectively. 

But Bernstein said the changes might do more harm than good.

What South Africa needs to do with the millions of unemployed people, the vast majority of whom are young people, is to create a fast-growing and labour-intensive economy.

“We have to change the economy and make the hard decisions so that we become attractive to investors, and some parts of our labour laws so that employers actually want to hire people, not constrained by all sorts of red tape.” 

Bernstein says the country needs to enable small business to get going without a whole lot of regulation and unemployed young people to get into the work force as fast as possible at a lower level than other people. 

National Youth Development Agency CEO Waseem Carrim says the role of the critical skills list is to ensure that the country brings in the skills its needs to grow but balance that with employing the skills that exist. 

“We have participated in and support the process of the critical skills list – a key component of economic growth is leveraging of the skills to take advantage of global opportunities.” Carrim said:

South Africa produces leading graduates and these graduates should be prioritised for employment opportunities.

www.samigration.com