SA's unemployed workers don't have skills to fill gap
June 18, 2009
South Africa's unfortunate paradox of a massive potential labour force (represented by an unemployment rate of 23.5 percent), combined with acute shortages of certain types of skilled labour, was highlighted yesterday in staffing group Adcorp's latest employment index.
The skills mismatch is an issue that crops up almost every time a discussion on unemployment arises: that South Africa's unemployed are by and large unskilled or semi-skilled, and have been ill equipped by our education system to undertake certain projects or fill certain jobs.
As a result, we continue to import skills at the same time as we are losing jobs as a result of the recession.
According to a recent Department of Home Affairs quota list of occupations for which skills may be sourced abroad, South Africa is on the prowl for actuaries, engineering professionals, agricultural and science technicians, and health and education professionals, among others.
The Adcorp report says the concern remains that South Africa will still not have the skills needed to support its development when the country returns to economic growth. While it welcomes the newly established Ministry of Tertiary Education, and notes an increase in tertiary education enrolment, learnerships and apprenticeships, it says the skills deficits will probably require importing skills in the short to medium term.
The outlook for the unskilled is somewhat bleak for the next year. Adcorp forecasts an uptick in employment in a year's time, at the earliest, taking into account estimates of a return to economic growth in the first or second quarter of next year.
It's no wonder that the government is eyeing expanded public works programmes to relieve some of this pressure. It doesn't have many alternatives to prevent the ranks of the unemployed swelling. Hopefully the programmes will be aligned with initiatives to upskill beneficiaries.
Durban's moving market
An illuminating piece of Durban's history was stumbled upon while digging around the internet. It seems the current struggle that traders at the Warwick Junction Early Morning Market have with the city council to keep the market open is not the first.
This nugget of information was found on the South African History website and was researched in partnership with the Durban University of Technology. It highlights how vital markets are to Durban, and how they were, and still are, a means to make a living for people excluded from the mainstream economy.
In 1876 Indian market gardeners started selling their produce in the Gardener Street area. The market moved to the Juma Masjid or Grey Street Mosque, but the council tried to close it down in the 1890s. After negotiations with the mosque's trustees, it was agreed that the market would remain open with an annual payment of £10 to the city council.
In 1910 it was moved to the west end of Victoria Street. At the same time, the municipality allowed market gardeners to sell their fruit and vegetables alongside Victoria Street.
This was known as the Squatters Market, but it became an irritation to white residents of the city, and as a result, the council moved the market to the Warwick Avenue area in 1934.
Today, as was the case more than 100 years ago, many traders do not have other options to make a living, and in an economy that is shedding jobs, finding alternative work will not be easy.
The concern for the traders at the Early Morning Market is that moving to a temporary site to make way for the new shopping centre is the first step in shutting the market down. But Phillip Sithole, the head of eThekwini's business support unit, is adamant that the supply of fresh produce is needed and will continue to be available.
History shows this market has evolved over the years and it could be reincarnated on another site close to its current location.
What's Anglo meant to do?
Investors are again unhappy with Anglo American, with the Times Online of London reporting that leading shareholders of the group have lost confidence in Cynthia Carroll less than 16 months after she took over as chief executive.
Reportedly, these investors accuse her of overpaying for acquisitions and failing to deliver the proper day-to-day management of the company.
Not long ago, former Anglo chief executive Tony Trahar came under fire for being too conservative about completing acquisitions at a time of the "commodity supercycle".
Investors are a fickle bunch. They demand that companies buy assets at excessive prices during a bull market and then, when the market turns and goes into a bear cycle, they expect that companies should be debt free and maintain dividends - a hard balancing act.
The greatest guard against being heavily indebted is avoiding buying assets at a high price, especially during the height of a bull market. Assets should be bought during bear markets and sold during bull markets.
One of Anglo's greatest weaknesses is the difficulty it has in convincing its restless shareholders, particularly in London, that it is on the right track.
The feeling one gets is that, in their heart of hearts, Anglo's London investors don't like the group's management and board and would love to see an outside group, such as Xstrata, take over.
At the same time, criticism of Anglo has been justified as the group has been fixing itself up, especially when it comes to its safety and its empowerment credentials, while selling off non-core assets.
Despite these fixes, what really got under investors' skin and shocked them to the core was when Carroll announced in February that the group had halted its dividends payments - something Anglo had not done in 70 years.
Edited by Peter DeIonno. With contributions by Ingi Salgado, Samantha Enslin-Payne and Justin Brown
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