EDITORIAL: Solutions to skills crisis evade only the government

SA has an unemployment crisis. It also has a skills crisis. This toxic combination is slowly poisoning the economy and raising the risk of a democracy-threatening social explosion. The proportion of South Africans with no hope for a better future and little to lose has probably already reached the tipping point.

All of the above is trite — hardly a day goes by without some or other political analyst or business leader warning that we are “on the precipice”. The solutions to the unemployment crisis are no secret either. But they demand political will, and that is evidently in short supply. It is also not a crisis that can be resolved in a hurry, even with all the will in the world.

At core, both SA’s jobless crisis and the shortage of appropriate skills to fill those positions that do exist are a result of a failure of the basic education and technical training system. That too will not be resolved overnight, even if the government were to tackle impediments such as the shortage of appropriate institutions and qualified teachers, excessive trade union influence and inadequate infrastructure.

But there is low-hanging fruit, and it is bewildering that a government faced with such an obvious existential crisis has been so slow to pluck it. Life Healthcare CEO Peter Wharton-Hood recently wrote an impassioned piece for publication in Business Day appealing to the government to allow the private healthcare sector to help it deal with the critical shortage of nurses in SA, which on the current trajectory is expected to reach as many as 100,000 by 2030 (“SA needs to invest in nurses to avoid a healthcare catastrophe”, April 12).

Private healthcare groups have both the facilities and the capacity to train several thousand new nurses each year, yet SA Nursing Council and Council on Higher Education regulations place strict limitations on their ability to do so, for no rational reason. Failing to deliver on your constitutional obligation to govern is bad enough, but deliberately preventing others from filling the void that is left by that failure is unforgivable.

The skills shortage in business at senior and middle management level, especially when it comes to technical qualifications and experience, has been exacerbated by emigration. It is sensible, therefore, to make it as easy as possible for firms to bring in scarce skills from abroad. Yet it remains exceedingly difficult for foreign work visa applicants to obtain certainty that they will be allowed to stay in SA.

The department of home affairs recently announced that holders of long-term visas that are due to expire, and those awaiting the outcome of their applications for work visas, now have an extension to end-December. But with a backlog that exceeds 75,000 applications, some dating as far back as 2016, few are holding their breath (“A sorry state of (home) affairs”, April 8).

There is a global talent shortage, particularly in areas such as IT, finance, engineering and health care. It makes no sense to simultaneously fail to address the “push” factors driving skilled South Africans overseas, and make it unreasonably difficult for those who have the skills we need, to live and work in this country.