‘Training vital now’ to avoid lack of engineers

IF SA does not act now to build up the skills level required to meet future demand, skilled professions like engineering could find itself unable to fill many posts, according to Matthews Phale, senior manager of group capacity building at Transnet.

He was speaking at the fourth annual BHP Billiton Skills Development Summit in Pretoria last week, and said that an ageing workforce in the engineering sector and the lead time required for training meant that in 15 years’ time, Transnet could find itself “without a qualified workforce for the sector if the skills shortage dilemma in SA isn’t solved”.

According to a quarterly survey conducted by financial services company PPS and released last month, one of the biggest concerns among SA’s engineering professionals is the shortage of new skills coming to the market.

Mr Phale said the average age of engineers and technicians at Transnet was 45 and 37 years old, respectively. SA needed to build the skills level ahead of demand, which was where the country was lagging, he said.

“A responsive approach to business requirements is also imperative. There must be clarity on what type of skills are required by specific sectors. These skills should then be built into primary and secondary school curriculums, thereby ensuring businesses’ needs are met and the correct skills sets are developed.”

Mvuyisi Macikama, chief director of the National Skills Fund, said that skills development needed to be more aggressively driven by the government as the lack of skills in the country was severely hampering SA’s growth and jobcreation prospects. He said that even though about 60 000 jobs were advertised across SA each week, most of these adverts were repeated weekly because of a lack of skilled workers available to fill these positions.

BHP Billiton southern Africa chairman Xolani Mkhwanazi said: “Without continued investment in skills development, there can be no sustainable employment. We need to continue to earn our right to grow by recognising that we have a role to play in the upskilling of South Africans.”

Mr Macikama, who was speaking on behalf of the Department of Higher Education and Training, said the department was determined to remove blockages to scarce skills supply.

“We are improving the skills production pipeline in intermediate and high-level skills, as well as improving access and articulation in a diverse system of universities, further education and training (FET) colleges, workplace skills development and community skills development centres.”

African National Congress secretary-general Gwede Mantashe said ahead of a meeting of the party’s top brass last week that the R5bn set aside for the youth wage subsidy should be made available to fund “other interventions” to alleviate youth unemployment, including internships, training, providing access for young people wanting to attend further education and training colleges and for learnerships.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has criticised Mr Mantashe’s comments, saying that the youth wage subsidy should be implemented in its present form.

DA national spokesman Mmusi Maimane said ahead of the DA’s launch of its national jobs campaign on Saturday that the campaign was aimed at rectifying SA’s “jobs crisis”.