Skills, growth and migration policy: overcoming the 'fatal constraint'

South Africa suffers from a serious shortage of skilled people. This is a major constraint on the prospects of achieving the kind of sustained economic growth that will reduce poverty and open the way for much wider participation in the economy. In this report the authors review skills issues in South Africa and how they have developed up to this point. The authors argue that a country’s own human capital including education, training and the encouragement of enterprises drives a nation’s success. Special emphasis is placed on immigration policy which it is argued plays a vital role in skills issues.

The document argues for a more open, more flexible, more energetic market driven immigration policy as a key part of a long term strategy to develop South Africa’s human capital as broadly and deeply as possible. The authors call on government to rid themselves of the myths of skills shortages and open the way for a more transparent and systematic debate on the place of immigration in helping to address the skills crisis. The following recommendations are made:

• a new more positive attitude to immigration is needed as an essential ingredient in achieving South Africa’s economic growth and development goals
• an end to sector specific immigration quotas and burdensome certification processes
• an end to ambiguity and changing goalposts in government attitudes to immigration, to be replaced with an energetic campaign to communicate the positive aspects of recruiting foreign skills within relevant government departments
• overseas recruitment drives to attract a wide spectrum of skilled progessionals such as IT experts, teachers, doctors and nurses.