The government is in talks with Germany to employ SA-trained nurses to fill vacancies in Europe’s largest economy, which has been struggling with a critical labour shortage crisis.
Democratic Nursing Organisation of SA (Denosa) deputy secretary-general Khaya Sodidi said Germany wants SA to train nurses for them, mainly the unemployed youth, adding that Germany has a shortage of about 500,000 nurses, while SA has about 20,000 unemployed nurses. “We can confirm there are continuous engagements about nurses between Germany and SA, but nothing has been finalised just yet,” Sodidi said.
Sodidi said Germany was interested in the 20,000 unemployed healthcare workers. “The SA government is keen on releasing those 20,000 nurses to Germany because they are saying they don’t have money to employ them. But ours is to make sure these 20,000 nurses are employed because the private sector wants them,” he said.
This was confirmed by employment & labour minister Thulas Nxesi, who said they had just concluded an agreement with Germany about the nurses.
“There’s [also] an agreement with Ireland. It’s shocking, the number of construction workers who are in Ireland from SA. There are South Africans who are looking for opportunities outside,” he said at a jobs expo held in Nasrec, Johannesburg, last week, where government leaders warned SA’s unemployment crisis could ignite a “revolution”.
SA has a high unemployment rate, which in the first quarter rose to 32.9% from 32.7% previously. Stats SA data shows that the number of unemployed South Africans rose by 179,000 to 7.9-million.
The youth unemployment rate is much worse, reaching 62.1% in the first quarter and 71.2% using the expanded definition, which includes people who were available for work but not looking for a job. Data shows the expanded definition of unemployment posted at 42.4% in the first quarter, down from 42.6% in the fourth quarter.
Specialist vacancies
SA also has a little more than 22,000 nurses for more than 50-million people, while specialist vacancies remain unfilled, and the private hospital sector has grown outspoken about SA’s nursing shortage. In May Netcare CEO Richard Friedland warned this was putting a damper on the company’s growth prospects and threatened the provision of healthcare in the public and private sectors.
Sodidi stressed Denosa will not “block this programme while our youth are faced with the crisis of unemployment”.
“All we want to do is to make sure they are not exploited when they go to Germany.
“We have agreed to embark on a study tour [to Germany] to access their healthcare facilities and institutions.”
Nelson Mandela University political analyst Ntsikelelo Breakfast said if SA and Germany agree on the programme, “we are the ones who are going to benefit from it, in pursuit of our development agenda”.
“Bilateral agreements are based on treaties and there are provisions [whereby] the countries are going to benefit from each other. We are friends of Germany,” Breakfast said.
Labour analyst Michael Bagraim, also the DA’s deputy employment & labour spokesperson, said that with the talks between Germany and SA the government was probably trying to “cover up the fact that people who have got skills are struggling to find employment in SA and are taking those valuable skills elsewhere”.
‘Leaving in droves’
Bagraim said skilled South Africans aged 18 to 40 are leaving for greener pastures in the UK, US, Australia and New Zealand. “We are short of skilled people, we don’t have enough nurses ... they are finding jobs in the United Arab Emirates and are leaving in droves.”
He said Nxesi needs to take the country into his confidence about the deal. About Ireland’s supposed deal, Bagraim said getting a job in a construction company has got “nothing to do with government at all”.
Nxesi did not respond immediately to questions sent to him.
Construction worker Sipho Maatjie, 44, was touted at the expo as an example of beneficiaries of a programme which allowed SA construction workers to ply their trade in Ireland. He’s worked for construction giant Wilson Bayly Holmes-Ovcon (WBHO) as a “concrete hand” for 14 years.
Speaking to Business Day on the sidelines of the expo, Maatjie said he was hired by KonFloor — described on its website as “the leading concrete industrial flooring contractor throughout the UK and Ireland” — after having applied through the department of employment & labour’s job seeker portal, the Employment Services System of SA (ESSA).
“I applied online, I received a call from ESSA and was called to an interview in Boksburg. There was a white man from Ireland. I was hired on the spot. They asked if I have a passport, I said no, so I went to home affairs to apply for one. I’m now waiting for my passport, I’m leaving once it comes out,” said an ecstatic Maatjie.
Maatjie joins a long list of construction workers who are looking for opportunities abroad; unsurprising, as the industry last saw growth in the years leading to the 2010 Fifa World Cup. Since then it has been on a downward spiral due to subdued activity.
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