South Africa has one of the world’s highest unemployment rates. It also has a dire skills shortage.
The two aren’t unrelated.
A South African presidency study shows that in the seven years to 2021, only 25,298 skilled-work visas were issued in the nation of 60 million people. That’s despite each skilled worker creating more than one other job, boosting productivity and the tax take.
A closed store in Johannesburg. Photographer: Waldo Swiegers/Bloomberg
One of its main authors speaks of protectionism and hostility toward using foreign skills, even though a broken education system does little to prepare South Africans for the workplace.
That’s frustrated foreign investors who’ve been unable to get executives and technicians into the country, forcing them hold back on expansions or to set up offices elsewhere. A German business organization warned this week the inefficiency is threatening operations of its companies in South Africa that support 100,000 jobs.
It’s just another wound the nation has inflicted on itself — adding to the power, transportation and infrastructure crises.
Now, the government may finally have a plan to fix the gridlock. It aims to simplify the work-permit process and make it easier to win approval.
A decent education and a minimum salary could in future be enough to get a permit, major companies will be allowed to vouch for the qualifications of those they bring in and visa categories for startups and remote workers will be created.
South Africa’s comparatively developed economy may have created a misplaced belief about its exceptionalism on the continent.
The fact that its bureaucracy takes almost a year to process a work permit compared with two months in Nigeria should serve as a wake-up call.
Centre for Nigeria Progress 