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Universities fail to produce enough graduates in business-oriented fields
South African tertiary institutions are failing to produce enough graduates in business-oriented fields, staffing solutions company Adcorp said on Tuesday, releasing its December Employment Index.
The report pointed to there currently being nearly 600 000 unemployed university graduates in South Africa, mostly in the arts, humanities and social sciences, whereas the private sector has more than 800 000 vacancies in management, engineering, law, finance, accounting and medicine.
However, despite a total of 103 327 new jobs being created in December 2011 – the fastest rate of growth in nine months – the index suggested certain professional bodies also restricted entry into the professions, often acting in concert with universities and, typically, with legislative and regulatory quiescence.
For example, the General Council of the Bar, the law societies, the Health Professions Council, the Institute of Chartered Accountants and other bodies that set their own criteria, typically an exam, but often impose other criteria such as low-paid articleship or housemanship as a prerequisite for entry into the professions.
“The result is that tens of thousands of people with suitable capabilities, who are willing to work in the professions, are artificially excluded from doing so, and are forced to enter second-choice careers earning less than their aptitude and qualifications justify,” Adcorp labour market analyst Loane Sharp said in a statement.
By contrast, fields such as physics, finance, engineering, economics and management do not have professional bodies.
Further, he said this trend results in many of these individuals seeking the possibility of training and working abroad, and in this way professional bodies were unwittingly responsible for the emigration of many high-skilled and talented young people.
“The Department of Home Affairs no longer compiles proper statistics on emigration, so Adcorp finds it difficult to know how substantial this effect is,” he pointed out.
Meanwhile, government handouts, trade unions and affirmative action have combined to generate a “marked negative effect” on the desire to work in South Africa.
As many as 10.2-million South Africans, or one in five, receive grants of one form or another, amounting to 14.9-million grants, or 1.5 grants per recipient, yielding average annual transfers of R9 539 per beneficiary.
This latest report draws attention to Statistics South Africa’s Quarterly Labour Force Survey as providing “startling confirmation” of these effects.
“If offered a job, 43.3% of unemployed people are willing to accept a job when they are supporting themselves by their own savings, where 11.1% of people will accept a job if they are supported by social grants and welfare.
“Unemployed people are also more likely to remain out of work if they are supported by social grants and welfare. The average duration of unemployment is 16 months for people who do not receive grants, compared to 21 months for people who do,” Sharp pointed out.
Unions also typically discourage work by increasing their members’ demand for leisure time and sociable working hours.
Adcorp’s index pointed to only 9.3% of unionised workers, as opposed to 17.8% of nonunionised workers, being prepared to work additional hours in a given week. Of those who will do so, unionised workers are prepared to work an additional 0.9 hours a week compared to 2.4 hours a week for nonunionised workers.
The Adcorp Employment Index for December 2011 emphasises that affirmative action “has exceedingly poor consequences” for the desire to work in South Africa, with highly qualified whites 34% less likely than blacks to find a job within 12 months of initiating a job search.
“This has contributed to the higher percentage of whites operating their own businesses. Business owners’ share of national income increased from 39.9% in 1995, to 47.2% in 2011, while the employees’ share had correspondingly declined,” Sharp noted.
Despite the improved statistics, Sharp points out that the number of jobs in South Africa is still 850 000 below the peak reached before the 2009 recession, since which time the economy has shed 1.56-million permanent jobs and created 0.71-million temporary jobs.
Source - EngineeringNews
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