JOHANNESBURG - In its 2020 South Africa skills study, the Xpatweb agency revealed that companies in the country are struggling to find qualified profiles in sectors such as engineering and ICT. This situation would be due to the mismatch between training and employment and to the brain drain.
Xpatweb, an agency specializing in expatriation and international mobility trends around the world, has just published its annual study on skills in South Africa.
Conducted with 178 companies, including companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and multinationals, the study found that engineering professionals and ICT specialists are the most sought after profiles in the country. Indeed, companies that participated in the study say they have difficulty finding a qualified engineer (21%), and an ICT specialist (19%).
The other most sought-after profiles are craftspeople (16%), senior executives (12%), financial managers (10%), health professionals (9%), media and marketing specialists (7%), people fluent in foreign languages (6%), science professionals (3%) and science, technology, engineering and mathematics teachers (3%).
Additionally, 89% of respondents said their organization struggles to recruit highly skilled people. To justify this situation, the study suggests two main reasons.
On the one hand, the inadequacy of training programs with the needs of companies, and on the other hand the brain drain which has led to a massive skills shortage, forcing large companies to recruit on the international market. 76% of respondents indicated the need to seek these skills internationally.
Note that this situation in South Africa is common to almost all the countries of the continent. Data from the Association of African Universities also indicate that Africa must train each year until 2023, more than 300,000 people in the field of engineering to fill the deficit of graduates in this sector.
