South Africa is in the throes of a skills crisis. This situation is seriously hampering the country's economic progress
and global participation. This study focuses on the analysis of skills migration in South Africa, and specifically aims
to provide a conceptual framework for better cognition of the skills situation in South Africa. The study is presented
in a series of four articles with a final chapter that incorporates these articles in a cognitive unit and, therefore,
provide a cognitive map to better understand skills migration in South Africa.
Article one of the study provides an in–depth discussion on the serious shortage of skilled workers and its impact on
the progress of the country. This crisis is largely due to the failure of the national education and training system to
supply the economy with much needed skills required to support economic growth and job creation. The findings of
this study indicated that there are various factors that are contributing to the skills shortages in the country. Some
of the factors include: poor education standards, emigration, crime and HIV. It must be noted that these factors
cannot be addressed overnight. Hence, this study emphasised the role that skilled foreign workers can play in
alleviating the skills shortages in the country. The contribution of foreign workers could be viewed as a short to
medium solution to the skills crisis. Finally, this study has confirmed the findings of similar studies undertaken by
the Centre for Development and Enterprise that opening the doors to high–skilled immigration can only serve as a
means of supplementing the skills pool and hence contributing to the economic growth of the country.
In relation to the above, that is, a means to address the skills shortages, article two supported the view that a more
expansive and robust policy approach to skills immigration can be part of the larger solution of addressing the
skills shortages of the country. This would allow for economic progress and make South Africa globally competitive.
Hence, the primary purpose of this article was to determine the effectiveness of South Africa's immigration policy to
support skills immigration. Attempts to recruit foreign skills to work in South African firms is proving to be a
challenge as there are a number of issues in South Africa's immigration policy that makes it restrictive for
organisations when recruiting skilled foreign workers. The following are some of the consequences of this
restrictive policy: due to major infrastructural growth and development during the 2010 period, there is tremendous
strain on the construction industry as a result of shortage of engineers, quantity surveyors, technicians and
architects. Problems in retaining skilled mining staff combined with insufficient new graduates and an aging
workforce is affecting the South African industry. A dearth of engineering skills at Eskom has also contributed to the
power crisis. Thus it could be concluded that South Africa's skills immigration policy is problematic and not helpful
in addressing the skills shortages of the country.
In addition and in relation to factors that are contributing to skills shortages in the country, article three of the
study focused specifically on factors that either push or pull people into a country. Push factors are generally
regarded as negative factors as they push people out of the country. These factors include affirmative action, which
contributes to emigration of skilled individuals, crime, HIV, economic instability, poor health care and
dissatisfaction with the political situation of the country. Pull or positive factors on the other hand draw skilled
South Africans to a country. These factors include: attractive salary packages, early retirement within the education
sector, an opportunity to gain international work experience, an improved lifestyle and variety of career choices.
Certain immigrants are pulled to South Africa as they see it as offering them economic opportunities that are not
available in their home country. However, these immigrants range largely from unskilled to a limited number of highly skilled workers. This is inadequate to address the skill shortages. Hence, this situation also points towards
recruitment of skilled foreign workers as a short to medium term solution.
The final article of the study confirms that skills shortage is a global phenomenon. As a result there is fierce
competition amongst countries to attract skilled labour so as to alleviate these shortages and improve their
competitive footing in the global economy. One major way that these countries strive to achieve their goal, is
through promoting targeted skills immigration programmes to attract skilled workers. In order to alleviate these
skills shortages and be part of the global economy, South Africa has to take lessons from these countries. Therefore,
the main purpose of this article in the study was to indicate the advantages of having a competitive skills
immigration policy. It also highlighted practices that make certain countries skills immigration programmes
successful. In doing so, these suitable practices could be offered to policy makers so that they can make informed
decisions on improving the skills immigration policy of the country.
Finally, there is a general consensus that South Africa's policy on skills immigration is in need of radical review
due to the fact that it is highly restrictive, bureaucratic, user–unfriendly and costly to administer. Moreover, it serves
as an impediment for business and industry to recruit skilled foreign labour into the country as a result of excessive,
and often, unnecessary regulations and procedures. As a consequence, South Africa tends to attract a higher
proportion of unskilled and semi–skilled foreign workers when, in actual fact, it should be attracting highly skilled
immigrants. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Business Administration))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nwu/oai:dspace.nwu.ac.za:10394/4618 |
| Date | January 2010 |
| Creators | Rasool, Fathima |
| Publisher | North-West University |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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