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Critical skills list: Government got it wrong, says expert

Source: 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 â€` 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.

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