Where are our skills going Gill Connellan

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Where are our skills going?Gill Connellan
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Where are our skills going?
A major survey has revealed that 40 percent of
final-year tertiary students are considering
emigrating Of the students sampled 48 percent
were black and 40 percent white. "The brain
drain is likely to be particularly damaging to
the economy when students leave relatively soon
after graduating and the country fails to receive
any appreciable return on direct investments in
training."Namhla Mniki, survey author of The
Potential Skills Base Survey, conducted by the
South African Migration Project (Samp).
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Whos packing for Perth?

• No published South African emigration statistics
  since 2003
• The last official immigration figures were
  published in July 2005.
• The SA Institute of Race Relations was also
  anxious for the figures to be published once
  again.
• The institute has drawn from a range of sources
  to identify an alarming emigration trend, which
  shows most SA migrants are skilled white men.
• Those leaving the country included medical
  personnel, teachers and people trained in the
  sciences or engineering.

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Returning Home

• Moving companies, real estate agents and
• nonprofit groups say more and more white South
• Africans in their late 20s and beyond are
  returning
• to South Africa.
• A spokesperson for Stuttafords Van Lines, the
• largest moving company in South Africa, said that
• for every person the company moves out of South
• Africa to the United Kingdom, it helps another
  1.5
• return.

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Returning Home

• A rise in the number of white South Africans
  looking for help with career advice, immigration
  papers and other tasks associated with moving
  home.
• Come Back Home Campaign, a largely Afrikaner-run
  initiative similar to the Homecoming Revolution.
• Moments of national insecurity, like power cuts
  the xenophobic attacks reduce consistent flow of
  immigrants turns into a trickle.
• "It was the soccer World Cup that got their
  attention. We had quite a few sales." said Brent
  Townes, CEO of Sotheby's International Realty
  South Africa.
• South Africans have created their own image
  problem.

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State of Skills 2007
published 4 August 2008

• In his 2008 budget speech, the Minister of
  Labour, Membathisi Mdladlana quotes research by
  SWOP as finding that the hierarchy of the
  national labour market is still very racialised,
  with Black people remaining at the lowest end
  (Mdladlana, 2008).

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State of Skills 2007
published 4 August 2008

• bearing in mind that the Employment Equity Act
• of 1998 regards a person as suitably
  qualified
• for a job as a result of any one, or a
  combination of
• that persons
• formal qualifications
• prior learning
• relevant experience
• capacity to acquire, within a reasonable time,
  the ability to do the job. (20082)

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State of Skills 2007
published 4 August 2008

• The minister concluded that the findings of the
  research were not what was envisaged ten years
  before when the employment equity legislation was
  first introduced. The carrot is not working and
  the stick has to come out, he said.

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Is the Skills shortage a Myth?

• Economists, researchers and industry insiders
  believe that the shortage of skills is the
  biggest challenge faced by the economy.
• "We are going through a period of denial as far
  as the skills shortage is concerned," said Azar
  Jammine, the chief economist for Econometrix.
• "By continuing to deny the problem, we are doing
  more harm than we will ever know because we are
  destroying the ability to persuade young black
  South Africans that the way forward is to get
  educated."
• Jammine said that though the country was not in a
  situation in which there were no people to do the
  work, companies were being forced to use
  under-qualified and inexperienced staff and this
  resulted in lowered standards.
• According to the National Remuneration Guide,
  published by Deloitte and Touche in February,
  about 81 percent of companies experienced
  difficulties in recruiting staff because of the
  skills shortage.

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Is the Skills shortage a Myth?

• Solidarity and Cosatu believe that the biggest
  problem is the education system, in which many
  children and teachers are unable to perform
  satisfactorily because of a lack of resources.
• The department of labour ran a free employment
  services system that registered 169 059
  work-seekers and 15 364 job opportunities in the
  past financial year. Of the job seekers, 19 266
  found employment.
• Headhunting a vastly growing trend and lack of
  advertising for positions creates an impression
  that all is well.
• Sam Morotoba,the deputy director-general of the
  department of labour, said a major problem for
  the government was getting companies to list
  their vacancies on the employment services and
  job-matching system.
• The ministry of public service and administration
  said it was difficult to provide accurate data on
  skills shortages in the public service because of
  decentralisation.

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Is the Skills shortage a Myth?

• "We were successful in obtaining resources from
  the Indian government to assist with the
  enhancement of skills of South African public
  servants," said Ramona Baijnath, a ministerial
  spokesperson.
• Based on data received from government
  departments, and from the government's salaries
  and human resources database, on January 31, 86
  percent of government-funded posts were filled.
• 31 percent of the vacancies are in the combined
  occupational categories of professionals
  (including physical, mathematical, engineering
  science, life science, legal, health and
  nursing), technical and associate professionals,".

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Are We Getting the Skills We Deserve?

• 17 of school leavers achieved the standard
  necessary to proceed to university.
• 50 passed but did not qualify to proceed to
  university.
• 33 failed matric.
• 535 000 young people left school between the end
  of 2005 and 2007 with no passing certificate
  and into a very uncertain future.
• The majority of these will join the ranks of the
  unemployed young people between the ages of 20
  and 24 comprise 14 of the labour force.
• Over-represented (27) in the unemployed.
• 7,2 million illiterate people in South Africa.

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Are We Getting the Skills We Deserve?

• New single education system has not resolved the
  problem
• 1 in 10 white children achieved an A aggregate
• 1 in 1000 black children achieved an A
  aggregate
• 66 of higher-grade maths passes by 7 of the
  schools
• 0,6 of these are in historically African
  schools.
• Based on a national survey of performance by
  Dept. Education

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State of Skills 2006 - 2007

• 11 major families of occupation experiencing
  shortages of skilled people -
• 1. Engineering and built environment
  professions.
• 2. Health professions.
• 3. Finance professions.
• 4. Law professions.
• 5. City planners.
• 6. IT/ICT professions.
• 7. Natural science professions.
• 8. Management professions.
• 9. Education professions.
• 10. Transport professions.
• 11. Artisans.

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Important Observations on National Scarce Skills

• Primarily the professions (including managerial
  positions) which are facing the largest magnitude
  of scarcity.
• Skills acquisition challenge is not a numbers
  challenge it is a systems challenge -
• JIPSA
• A system malfunction characterised by bottlenecks
  and logjams which have slowed the production of
  the required amounts of skilled personnel needed
  in the skills pipeline from education and
  training into the labour market.

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Important Observations on National Scarce Skills

• Imperative that we address the
• systems blockages and inefficiencies and the
• quality problems that impede the acquisition of
  relevant, high quality skills to sustain growth
  over the medium to longer term.
• A major issue is the ageing, retirement or
  emigration of the skilled workforce, and the
  supply (and on-the-job mentoring) of younger
  artisans, technicians and engineers to replace
  them.

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Is it a Brain Drain or Brain Exchange

• South Africa's brain drain is not the crisis it
  is made out to be.
• A percentage of them are returning, often with
  increased skills to contribute to the economy.
• Skilled foreigners and their families are
  emigrating to South Africa
• "When people leave, often they come back, some of
  them after three to five years' international
  work experience. They then add their skills to
  the economy.

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Is it a Brain Drain or Brain Exchange

• Global Migration brings 60 to 100 skilled people
  to South Africa every month and "sends out" 15 to
  30 South Africans to other countries. 30 percent
  to 40 percent eventually returned.
• Shortage of skills worldwide and that South
  Africa was not the only country grappling with
  the issue.
• South Africans were among her biggest clients and
  were sought after by employers in Australia
  because they were qualified, highly skilled and
  English-speaking.
• This brain exchange is growing world citizens.

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Global Skills Shortages

• June 25 2008
• More than 50 European governments on Wednesday
  kicked off of a World Health Organisation meeting
  focusing on the brain drain of doctors and nurses
  from poor to rich nations.
• "With ageing populations and the increasing
  burden of disease, we know that demand for health
  workers will
• increase, meaning emigration trends are likely
  to persist, said Mary Robinson, a former UN
  human rights chief who is now a key player in the
  WHO-steered Global Health Workforce Alliance.
• Many African and Asian nations have strong health
  training but end up losing their investment when
  workers migrate. Meanwhile rich countries save
  training costs by attracting migrants, according
  to the WHO.

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Global Skills Shortages

• The WHO has cited a global shortage of doctors,
  nurses and other professionals that comes to more
  than 4,3-million, most of them in the developing
  world.
• "Technical solutions must be found to balance the
  right to migrate with the right for all to have
  access to a well-functioning health system, and
  there are also ethical dimensions to be
  considered," WHO spokesperson Liuba Negru said.

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Globalisation
A complex series of economic, social,
technological, cultural and political changes are
increasing interdependence, integration and
interaction between people and companies in
disparate locations. . IMF  
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Trends to Watch

• Centres of economic activity will shift
  profoundly, not just globally, but also
  regionally.
• Shifts within regions will be even more dramatic.
• Today, Asia (Excluding Japan) accounts for 13
  percent of the worlds GDP, while Western
  Europe accounts for more than 30 percent.
• Within 20 years the two will converge.
  
  
• . Mckinsey Quarterly Web Exclusive 2006

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Pumping the Global Talent Pipeline The 21st
Century Imperative

• Global Talent deficit is fundamental to
  sustainability.
• Owing to the flux in the global economy it is
  difficult to forecast where a skill shortage will
  arise next.
• External markets are not delivering the right
  skills at the pace of change
• .Infosys Davos 2006 Panel
  Debate

Lt Gen (Retd) S S Mehta, PVSM, AVSM and Bar, VSM
Director General Confederation of Indian Industry
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Skills A Global Currency

• "Skills" are a global currency for a globalising
  world.
• Countries with a significant skills capital can
  innovate remain competitive and enable
  sustainable growth.
• Skills Development will create inclusive
  societies.
• Global Skills Development should be added as a UN
  Millennium Goal.

Lt Gen (Retd) S S Mehta, PVSM, AVSM and Bar, VSM
Director General Confederation of Indian Industry
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Focus on Developing Human Resource
Countries that get addicted to selling their
natural resources rarely develop their human
resource and the educational and innovative
companies that go with that. So, after the ore
has been mined, the trees cut, and the oil
pumped, their people are actually even more
behind. Thomas Friedman
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THE FUTURE OF THE TALENT CRISIS(Because, oddly,
the HR Department could be the key to future
profitability)

• The critical skills of a developed economy cannot
  be learned at some weekend training seminar in
  the ballroom of a Holiday Inn. The experts take
  time and effort to develop. Due to global aging ,
  nearly HALF of all subject-matter experts are
  retiring, leaving a GLOBAL TALENT CRISIS for
  companies to navigate. Moreover, its a global
  issue, touching all industrialized and
  industrializing! countries.
• This doesnt mean theres going to be NO talent.
  It means there will be increased competition for
  the best brains and your future profitability
  may rest in the hands of your HR department.

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THE FUTURE OF THE TALENT CRISIS(Because, oddly,
the HR Department could be the key to future
profitability)

• When the Boomers retire, your company is going to
  be strapped for talent. This you know. Remember
  that nearly EVERY company throughout the
  industrialized world is going to be lacking
  skilled workers, and thus competing for the same
  brains.
• There are two major fixes Recruitment, and
  knowledge management. The smart money is
  preparing human capital systems that attract and
  keep top people and keep valuable knowledge in
  your company any way you can.
• When this crisis hits over the next 15 years,
  successful companies may be defined by those who
  build their human resources today.

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Four major trends are making human resources a
strategic issues for the next fifteen years
MASS GLOBAL RETIREMENT
INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION FOR TALENT
INCREASINGLY KNOWLEDGE-based industries
Generation x y take power and have different
values
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Questions?

• Contact us at
• [phone]
• gill_at_eclipse1.co.za
• or
• info_at_asdfsa.co.za

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SA has huge skills shortage?