Home Affairs minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula this morning announced government is setting aside about 35 000 work permits for skilled foreigners "able to contribute to the growth of the South African economy in a number of areas suffering from a shortage of critical skills".
The minister released a Government Gazette containing 53 categories that it believes are in the scarce category, but none of these are in the ICT sector.
Asked about this, Mapisa-Nqakula said the matter was still under discussion at the Joint Initiative on Priority Skills Acquisition (Jipsa).
"Jipsa is to assist us with determining the requirements [for ICT professional]," the minister said at a press briefing in Pretoria this morning.
This is the second year government has published a list of scarce skills and also the second year government has called for 1 000 maths and science teachers. Asked about the response to last year's call, Mapisa-Nqakula said: "The response was not as overwhelming as expected." She said she was not sure if people were not interested, or whether information on the posts passed them by.
Government is also keen that foreigners recruited to full-time scarce posts transfer their skills and mentor locals before eventually returning home. Deputy Home Affairs minister Malusi Gigaba said there is "a common responsibility that people engage in mentoring and the transfer of scarce skills. Recruiters must ensure the people recruited transfer their skills."
"The quota work permits we are announcing today will give employers facing skills shortages a massive boost, allowing them to recruit skilled foreigners and so to grasp business opportunities, create jobs, and ensure local employees are exposed to colleagues with cutting-edge training and experience," says Mapisa-Nqakula.
"Through Jipsa, we have consulted widely with private and public sector industry and organised labour on the quota permits announced today. As a result, we are ensuring our people gain maximum benefit from this opening up of the economy to those who can assist in bridging the gaps as we grow our own skills base in the country."
There is a shortage
Meanwhile, Bryan Hattingh, MD of leadership solutions group Cycan, argues SA has a skills shortage problem in the IT space. Speaking at the presentation of ITWeb's annual IT salary survey yesterday, he said a severe skills shortage in SA is encouraging job-hopping among IT employees.
The survey established more than half of the respondents are looking for a new job locally, and about 5% are ready to take up an overseas offer.
Furthermore, Hattingh stated ICT skills shortages are a global problem, saying the UK has experienced a 50% drop in applications for IT-related studies and the country is short of about 160 000 IT professionals.
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