Today's Labour News

City Press reports that about 97% of listed and multinational companies in SA say engineers are indispensable to their business operations and often have to be recruited abroad.

Yet government’s draft list of critical skills now contains only half as many engineering professions as it did six years ago. Marisa Jacobs of work visa consultancy Xpatweb, which conducted a recent survey, says that chemical and electrical engineers, for example, are excluded from the department of home affairs’ new draft list. The list was published in February after being updated for the first time since 2014. Foreigners with skills on this list who want to come to work in SA can get a work visa much faster than those who are not. If your skill isn’t on the list, you may wait for up to six months longer for a work visa, says Jacobs. The list contains skills that are important for the country’s strategic priorities, which are acute or may be in short supply in the future. It also contains skills that take a long time to develop. Jacobs said the latest survey, which involved 220 respondents, showed that engineers, scientists, tradespeople (especially electricians), specialists in healthcare and accounting, as well as senior financial managers were among the positions that businesses in SA struggled the most to fill. More than 80% of respondents were looking for engineers with three or more years of work experience, while 35% needed engineers who have an honours degree. But on the new draft critical skills list, there are 22 fewer occupations in the category for engineers than there were on the 2014 list. Encouraging is the inclusion of eight new professions or skills in the accounting sector

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Riana De Lange at City Press (paywall access only)

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