SA plans to launch an “aggressive” recruitment campaign targeting skilled foreign professionals to revitalise the sluggish economy, including potential subsidies for immigration costs, hoping to reverse the brain drain and revive key sectors.
Another key cog in the department of employment & labour plan to grow SA’s skills base is to lure back experienced expats, who have sought greener pastures elsewhere.
The plan, published in the country’s first national labour migration policy, proposes aggressive recruitment among the diaspora and foreign professionals in critically affected sectors and professions, with complementing standard work visa applications.
However, the new policy, which comes as the economy grapples with a skills exodus due to emigration, has the potential to polarise South Africans.
Its cheerleaders are likely to argue that courting skilled foreign professionals and coaxing seasoned expatriates back home with subsidised immigration costs will plug talent gaps in an economy that has hardly grown in more than a decade.
Critics might caution that this approach could further sideline local workers amid an unemployment rate of nearly 33%, raising thorny legal and constitutional questions about fairness.
The policy acknowledges there is a rising number of highly qualified South Africans, from the public and private sectors, who have left the country to seek experience or settle permanently abroad, making SA one of the largest countries of origin for African graduates in the world.
According to Stats SA’s migration profile report, the number of citizens living abroad passed 900,000 in 2020, with the UK, Australia, US, New Zealand and Canada topping the list of expatriates’ most preferred destinations.
Two-pronged strategy
The employment & labour department, through the mooted policy, has put forward a two-pronged strategy to proactively recruit skilled foreign nationals and launch a charm offensive to lure skilled expats back home.
To this end, the department, in co-ordination with the department of international relations & co-operation, and in consultation and collaboration with employers’ organisations, will explore several measures to attract skilled foreign nationals. These would include job adverts relayed by embassies, facilitation of job fairs abroad, subsidisation of immigration costs and the fast-tracking of immigration procedures.
“There is ample evidence that the issuing of temporary residence visas and permanent resident permits is not attracting the categories of international migrants that will contribute to the growth of the economy while in the country,” the policy reads.
“It appears that SA is home to many international migrants who are low-skilled and, in most cases, dependent on the state for social assistance and services. International migrants who have low to middle levels of skills often compete directly with unemployed South Africans.”
The department outlined several factors that play a “decisive” role in the retention of highly skilled migrants.
It said these include joint visa procedures for spouse and dependants, automatic issuance of a work visa for spouse, the right to study for spouse and dependants, and facilitated access to permanent residence after no longer than three years for the migrant worker and family.
“Employers should therefore not be discouraged from granting permanent positions to highly skilled foreign workers.
“Visa dispositions cited above should accompany issuance of critical skills. The automatic issuance of work visas for spouses and dependants ... should be considered. The same may be required in the case of spouses/dependants of intercompany transferees.”
The government’s proposals are likely to be hotly debated. This tension is acknowledged by the policy, which says the management of labour migration in SA should be sensitive to the need to minimise risks that migrants could pose to national security, economy and society and to establish risk levels before their entering the territory.
“The imposition of quotas to limit the number of foreign nationals from competing for the few technical and low-skilled jobs available is being considered. This would require enabling legal provisions to this effect.”
Skills retention
The department said it would, in collaboration with sister departments, draft a national strategy for skills retention, targeting both SA and foreign highly skilled workers, in sectors particularly affected by skills loss through emigration or remigration and shortages.
“This national strategy for skills retention will include a section on incentives to come back on a temporary or permanent basis to SA and to impart skills and experience in a range of ways, targeting countries of destination of South African highly skilled workers or workers who have been educated and trained in SA.”
Consideration will also be given to extending social security support to SA migrant workers who may not be appropriately covered by the social security system of the country of destination.
Hendrik du Toit, the CEO of asset manager Ninety One, recently told Business Day the country is on the brink of an “economic emergency” due to its runaway unemployment. He said SA has to move at pace to deal with lawlessness and corruption while embarking on a skills revolution to get the economy growing.
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