‘High number of employed foreigners shows SA’s skills shortage’

The Acting Deputy General Manager of the Public Servants Association (PSA), Claude Naiker says although the enactment of the Employment Services Amendment Bill seems like a possible solution to address the number of foreign nationals employed in South Africa, it does not address the issue of lack of skills in the country.

This comes after the revelation that approximately 6220 foreign nationals are employed in the public service. The figure includes permanent residents and temporary employees.

Naiker says the number clearly shows that there is a skills shortage in the country.

He says, “What we are actually doing is that we are having legislation to try and circle the problem that we have where we reduce the number of foreign nationals in favour of our own people, which is not really addressing the problem because we still have the problem where we do not have necessary skills set to compete.”

“I think that’s where we need to start, where we need to equip our people with necessary knowledge skills, qualifications, so that they can get not only preference, but if they do compete for the job, they are the best position for the job in any sector,” Naicker adds. – Reporting by Diteboho Ntimane.

PODCAST | Interview with Naiker on SAfm’s First Take Programme on foreign nationals employed in SA: