Closing the skills gap to diversify employment opportunities
The socioeconomic challenges facing Gauteng and the country necessitate decisive and swift action, especially when it comes to implementing township development programmes.
The unemployed demand that present levels of hardship — where 2.5-million people in Gauteng are jobless and 4.6% live in poverty — be addressed with the utmost urgency. To respond to these numbers, on June 16 2023 we began the Nasi iSpani mass recruitment programme to combat youth unemployment. This first-of-its-kind strategic recruitment programme stems from the Gauteng government’s strong desire to create meaningful job opportunities, empower individuals to unlock their full potential, and contribute to Gauteng’s economic growth.
To date, this unprecedented recruitment drive has employed thousands of young people. Considering that each employed South African supports 2.8 individuals on average, we can see the significance of the Nasi iSpani programme and the number of families that have benefited from it.
However, the programme also revealed that many unemployed people need to be skilled and reskilled, and that there is a skills mismatch in the province. Statistics show South Africa needs more technical skills to meet the demands of the labour market.
Appreciating the far-reaching consequences of not addressing the skills gap, the Gauteng provincial government has launched a training initiative called iCrush no Lova (a date with the unemployed) that emphasises substantial investments in training, education and skills development.
The programme, which caters to all ages, seeks to bridge the gap between the skills supply and the evolving South African job market demands. Opportunities in this programme include training in the construction, engineering, textiles, wholesale and retail, furniture manufacturing, aviation, and entrepreneurial skills sectors, among others.
These skills are carefully selected to fill gaps in the local economy, ensuring participants can find employment or create their own business opportunities upon completion of the programme. The Freedom Charter states that “higher education and technical training shall be opened to all by means of state allowances and scholarships awarded on the basis of merit”.
The South African constitution states that “everyone has the right to further education, which the state, through reasonable measures, must make progressively available and accessible”. The RDP made it clear this mandate could not be outsourced and emphasised the crucial function of the state in ensuring equitable growth.
It said: “No political democracy can survive and flourish if the mass of our people remains in poverty, without land, without tangible prospects for a better life. Attacking poverty and deprivation must be the priority of a democratic government.”
This assertion also aligns with the sixth administration’s promise, made during Covid, to build a new people-centred economy characterised by more radical policies, decisive action to effect thorough socioeconomic transformation, and the restructuring of our economy so that it is placed on a labour-absorbing trajectory. Since 2014, the government has been committed to expanding the technical and vocational education and training (TVET) sector to provide more meaningful support for students and ensure that “the intake of students for post-school education is massively expanded”.
We have long believed that the growth and development of the TVET sector are essential to industrialisation and decent employment. The resolutions from Polokwane and Mangaung focused on the importance of the TVET sector’s expansion and growth to produce technical intermediate skills necessary for industrialisation and decent job creation.
Skills development through the post-schooling system is essential to creating jobs and reducing poverty. The employment rate for individuals with post-matric degrees is 81%-89%, while the employment rate for those with only a matric qualification is about 55%.
We have previously invested in skills development by giving top-performing pupils more access to the post-schooling system through bursaries. From 2019 to date, we have awarded 18,046 bursaries. We expanded this plan in February when we unveiled a R560m bursary war chest to support more than 4,000 academically gifted youngsters.
The iCrush no Lova training programme aims to take this intervention to another level by equipping about 500,000 jobless people with the necessary skills to become plumbers, electricians, bricklayers, construction workers, engineers and textile workers. The scheme also aims to equip people with wholesale and retail, furniture manufacturing, aviation and entrepreneurial skills.
The initiative is being rolled out in all five of Gauteng’s regions (Sedibeng, West Rand, Tshwane, Ekurhuleni and Johannesburg), and is being run in collaboration with the department of employment & labour, TVET colleges and skills development centres.
The programme will accept applicants with a broad spectrum of educational backgrounds, skills levels and interests to close the skills gap between the supply and demand of a changing employment market in South Africa.
During training, participants will be paid a stipend, and after completion they should be able to secure work or establish their own businesses, thanks to the qualifications, which were carefully chosen to close shortfalls in the local economy.
The scheme will also help with South Africa’s employment structure, which is characterised by an extremely low self-employment rate.
Other emerging and middle-income nations have lower unemployment rates because people who can’t find official employment can support themselves by working as electricians, plumbers and other self-employed artisans. In South Africa, self-employment accounts for just 6% of the adult population, while in other developing middleincome countries, the figure is 20%.
This 14% difference can be addressed only if most unemployed people have artisanal skills. An increase in skilled people and income earners will also boost small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and economic growth. The problem now is that, while self-employment and SMEs help reduce poverty and provide jobs, the country’s high unemployment rate also increases the likelihood entrepreneurial ventures will fail.
A brief look at South Africa’s ailing SME sector, particularly in the townships, reveals that the high unemployment rate hurts these businesses, since the low earnings of the customer base limit its purchasing power, undermining the sustainability of the businesses.
This is untenable in an economy where consumer spending accounts for 60% of GDP, and there is therefore a need for government intervention that includes creating jobs and economic opportunities to support the economy’s expansion.
✼ Lesufi is the premier of Gauteng.