September 2010 - Skills Shortage 

Interesting facts

• Youth under the age of 35 represent 74% of total unemployment in South Africa
• The primary obstacle to skills development for inexperienced youth is finding their critical first job
• Due to lax enforcement of immigration controls for unskilled workers, South Africa’s underground workforce – comprising welleducated immigrants from Botswana, Namibia and, especially Zimbabwe – represents 26,9% of total employment in the recorded/official and unrecorded/unofficial sectors of the
  economy
• Due to strict immigration controls for high-skilled workers, the unemployment rate for South Africa’s highest-skilled professionals is just 0,4%,which is among the lowest in the world
• The average age of a unionised worker is 43 years, compared to the average of a typical job-seeker of 21 years
• The average SETA spend per learner on a learnership is R40 176
• There is only a 34% certification rate on learnerships, which means that R2,61 billion was wasted
• The SETA surplus of R1,31 billion has an opportunity cost of 32 538 additional learners
• Only R641 million of the R1,56 billion received by the National Skills Fund has been spent

In this exciting issue of the Adcorp Employment Quarterly, we examine several aspects
of South Africa’s growing skills crisis.

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