ANDILE NTINGI: Artisanships offer best route to employment

Every year around this time thousands of SA school leavers frantically search for higher learning institutions where they can enrol. Some are successful and others aren’t so lucky.

It’s no secret that the majority of school leavers aspire to graduate from universities rather than technical vocational education & training (TVET) colleges because of the perception that university degrees are more valuable than TVET college diplomas.

This widely held perception influences many young people to believe that university degrees are a one-way ticket to high-paying, white-collar professions such as accountancy, law, engineering, banking and medicine. In a society like ours, TVET college diplomas are less fancied because they are associated with low-paying, blue-collar trades such as plumbing, electrical work, carpentry, welding, masonry and bricklaying. 

That our country is facing a severe shortage of artisans and skilled tradesmen isn’t getting through to young South Africans. Those who know simply insert earplugs yet  the reality is that artisanship offers the best path to gainful employment and a middle-class lifestyle. In a country where young people form the lion’s share of our unloved jobseekers, they should be flooding TVET colleges to study and boost their chances of getting jobs. 

SA is experiencing a problem of university graduates who can’t find jobs. There is an oversupply of such skills in the labour market and potential employers are unable to absorb them. Out of desperation, some young graduates resort to taking up low-paying, semi-skilled jobs such as security guards, cashiers and waitering.

Many of these graduates should rather have entered the market with mid-level skills as artisans and tradesmen, enabling them to get ahead. According to the Artisan Training Institute (ATI), qualified artisans can earn between R20,000 and R25,000 a month.

For the past 10 years government has been trying to reverse the shortage of artisans. It has been encouraging young people to register at TVET colleges to train to become artisans, particularly plumbers and electricians.

Gaping void 

Our country needs to produce 30,000 artisans annually to be able to build infrastructure such as roads, railway tracks, harbours, schools, hospitals, universities and power stations. However, we are producing only about half that number annually, forcing construction companies to import artisans from countries that produce a surplus of these skills.

Three years ago higher education, science & innovation minister Blade Nzimande revealed that SA’s skills shortage could ease if at least 60% of school leavers trained as artisans. But our youth is not heeding Nzimande’s calls; the majority of school leavers opt instead to try to enrol at our 26 public universities rather than the 50 public TVET colleges.

In the US artisans are experiencing what is arguably a “golden age” as a growing number of tradespeople and craftspeople are getting wealthier and joining a new class of dollar millionaires. This newfound wealth is generated from payouts by cash-flush private equity firms, which are buying up trades companies such as heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), plumbing and electrical businesses.

According to a Wall Street Journal edition published on October 14 2024 and citing data from PitchBook, private equity firms have bought nearly 800 HVAC, plumbing and electrical companies since 2022.

The publication noted that the 800 transactions are the biggest deals in the sector, but there are more smaller transactions that weren’t made public due to sellers wishing to keep their payouts confidential. The US private equity investors are attracted to trades companies because the urgent nature of the repairs done by these businesses give them pricing leverage, as customers often have limited or no time to negotiate. 

The emergence of millionaire tradesmen and women is attracting young Americans to skilled trade careers. As a result, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center the number of students enrolled in US vocational colleges rose 16%  from 2022 to 2023.

‘Golden age’ 

For US artisans who own trades businesses the interest shown in them by private equity investors is providing a new exit route that was not previously available to them. Traditionally, these businesses were passed down by their founders to their children or long-time employees. 

The golden age of artisanship in the US should send a strong signal to qualified and aspiring artisans in SA: their industry is set to thrive. But this signal needs to travel beyond the industry and reach the wider SA society so as to get to get to the 60% minimum of school leavers who should be training as artisans at our TVET colleges.   

The shortage of artisans in our country isn’t an accident. It’s a human blunder worsened by two main problems that can be addressed. The Steel & Engineering Industries Federation of Southern Africa (Seifsa) identified these problems as the high number of retiring experienced artisans and an education system that produces matriculants who lack the maths and science proficiency that is required in trade professions. 

In its assessment of the situation Seifsa further noted that older, experienced artisans in their late 50s were retiring, while those in their 30s and 40s were emigrating in the hope of finding greener pastures, leaving a gaping void in the local market. 

The engineering body also observed a decline in the number of young people entering artisanal apprenticeships, a development that means artisans who have retired or emigrated aren’t being replaced by younger, qualified artisans. 

Young people must take the leap of faith and explore artisanships to avoid joining the ever-growing queues of their unemployed peers.

• Ntingi is founder of e-procurement platform GetBiz.