There’s a running joke on "EU Twitter" about the UK’s immigration policy after Brexit. British politicians and royals are pictured on social media asking: "Can you drive a lorry?" It’s a riff on the cover of New European magazine that mocks the government’s ineffective immigration regulations by writing these words on an illustration of people being rescued at sea.
The issue is that in the wake of its separation from the EU, the UK is running short of truck drivers — a situation that analysts are calling a crisis.
With unemployment sitting at less than 5%, the UK government has had to consider industry support mechanisms, possibly including special visas for truckers.
Is there a similar crisis in SA when it comes to particular skills?
Our debate on employment and skills has been volatile and emotive. What isn’t in doubt is that we have an unemployment crisis: 7.8-million people cannot find work, and a further 3.3-million have given up all hope of doing so.
But the nature and causes of the crisis are less clear. A debate that seems to be taking root — though poorly informed and misdirected, in my view — links the cause of the jobs crisis with the abilities and capabilities of the people who should be at work but aren’t.
I had the opportunity of listening to an FM podcast in which veteran journalist Peter Bruce was talking to ANC stalwart and retired bureaucrat Mavuso Msimang.
Msimang has been brought on board to help with labour regulations as they relate to immigration under President Cyril Ramaphosa’s programme to fast-track economic reform, Operation Vulindlela. He’ll be working on the critical skills list to ensure SA is able to import the skills it needs timeously.
But as Bruce notes, the most recent list of critical skills includes "farm manager [and] caravan park and camping ground manager".
To add to this, truck owners have long argued that certain trucking positions should be classified as scarce or critical skills.
Responding to that call, former transport minister Blade Nzimande reportedly said: "There are plenty of truck drivers in this country and even if there was a shortage, it’s not difficult to teach that skill."
The UK has had to start considering support mechanisms, including special visas for truckers
With that, he highlighted the very nub of the discussion. Does SA have a skills problem, a classification problem, or a policy response problem — especially as it relates to training?
A technical report on the 2020 critical skills list by the Labour Market Intelligence research programme notes that "as a result of globalisation, climate change mitigation and digital transformation, there is a need for skills to evolve more rapidly than ever before. These rapid economic shifts often create skills shortages and skills mismatches within labour markets."
The report also says the lag between economic shifts and the updating of qualifications at educational institutions creates short-term skills gaps and shortages.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development argues elsewhere that this "creates the need for a short-term intervention that can quickly help to plug those skills gaps that are not being filled by the current domestic labour market". This makes it "necessary in some cases to provide immigration preference to foreign nationals who are sufficiently skilled in areas where the domestic labour supply is not able to match employer needs".
The right thinking?
Two questions arise. First, how short is the short term, and what work will be done in this period to build local skills? Second, do we have a fit and proper process to determine what a critical skill is?
For example, the home affairs department’s website says: "The main objective of the critical skills work visa is to [help the government achieve] the national infrastructure project … and key national strategic projects in support of the department of trade & industry."
Can this be said about the skills Bruce raised in his podcast?
We are seeing such major economic shifts that we should wonder whether our policymakers are pushing the right thinking in terms of skills planning and forecasting, and in directing resources towards these outcomes.
More worryingly, are our responses not often based on the cynical intentions of employers, as may be the case with local truck owners?
We know we have an employment problem. But are we doing the right things to solve it?
Payi is an economist and head of research at Nascence Advisory & Research
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