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SA to rethink skills initiatives, but will continue private sector partnerships

South Africa’s latest official unemployment statistics reflect that 23,5% economically active South Africans, or 4,2-million people, are currently jobless. However, if that figure were to include those discouraged from actively seeking employment, known as the ‘broad’ definition of unemployment, the figure swells to an even more frightening 28,4%, or 5,3-million people. Further, about 75% of unemployed people are under the age of 35, while 72% of the unemployed between the ages of 15 and 30 have never had a job, and have, thus, never acquired any kind of marketable skill.

But still the country faces a so-called ‘skills deficit’, indicating a material mismatch between the education and training outcomes and the needs of a fast modernising economy.

Essentially, a large contributor to this unemployment problem is that most of the gaps in the South African job market are not able to be filled, because those who are unemployed simply do not possess the appropriate, or any, set of skills that are in demand.

To close this gap, it is widely agreed that solutions are needed that enable vast numbers of people around the country to be trained, or retrained. The challenge is as acute for the private sector as it is for the lowest and highest tiers of government, with the aim being not only to furnish people with jobs, but also to enable the economy to grow through key infra- structure and other developments that cannot be effected without an appropriately skilled workforce.

President Jacob Zuma highlighted this point in his recent State of the Nation address, saying: “We have to ensure that training and skills development initiatives in the country respond to the requirements of the economy.” He added that “education will be a key priority for the next five years”.

These sentiments reflected an earlier announcement, made in August 2008, for plans to introduce a nationwide human resource development strategy in April 2009, called the Human Resource Development Strategy of South Africa (HRDS-SA). The HRDS-SA would see a broad-based focus on developing skills and training initiatives across all industries and at all levels in the country, while seeking to align the supply of labour with the demands of the labour market.

Read more at http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/sa-to-rethink-skills-initiatives-but-will-continue-private-sector-partnerships-nzimande-2009-06-19

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