Infrastructure sector to face skills shortage for another decade
Thématique :
sud afrique
The skills shortage in South Africa’s infrastructure sector is likely to continue for at least the next ten years, despite the effects of the global economic slowdown leading to a delay in many projects, executive search firm Landelahni Business Leaders said on Tuesday.
Landelahni CEO Sandra Burmeister noted that this was if investment in skills training and development continued at current levels.
She asserted that South Africa’s skills challenges were very much in line with what was happening on a global level.
While there were a number of trends leading to the global skills shortage, Burmeister said that the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has determined that technology was the single biggest driver of skills shortages.
She added that the ILO had further determined that about 70 professions would become obsolete by as early as 2010, because of technological advances.
However, about 100 new roles would be developed as a result of this.
Meanwhile, Burmeister stated that the infrastructure sector in South Africa has made progress in increasing its investment in skills training and bursaries, but noted that more needed to be done.
A survey conducted by Landelahni showed that training spend by the infrastructure sector was higher than the average of all other industries.
Bursary spend had been between 0,5% and 1% of payroll since 1990, however, this has increased in rand terms over the past three years. The number of black people being trained was almost on par with the average of all other industries.
Civil engineering graduates had increased to 1 199 in 2006, compared with only 507 in 2003.
Further, 9 041 artisans had been given trade tests between 1986 and 2006, with only 42%, or 3 222, passing the tests.
However, South Africa required about 50 000 artisans to be trained over the next four years, just to meet demand from industry.
Burmeister commented that both government and the private sector had to significantly increase investment in artisan training, as the current artisan skills pool was also ageing, which would add to the shortage.
Meanwhile, she asserted that the industry also had to determine exactly which skills it required, as there was currently no information available on which specific disciplines within the engineering and artisan fields, were required.
Further, Burmeister noted that small and medium-sized contractors, especially in the construction sector, were exacerbating the skills shortage, as they did not have the capacity to develop skills.
The large contractors and parastatals would have to continue contributing the major investment share for skills training.
Burmeister concluded that the infrastructure sector would have to find an innovative approach to the recruitment of staff. For example, employers could make use of retired contractors or foreign nationals to run infrastructure projects, while also training new recruits.
Landelahni Business Leaders is a division of the Landelahni Recruitment group.
