THE government must make it easier for skilled foreigners to obtain work visas as they do not take jobs meant for unemployed South Africans, who have no skills, specialisation and experience to fill these vacancies.
This is among the conclusions reached by the high-level team appointed in June 2021 as part of Operation Vulindlela, which was established to implement priority structural reforms including a comprehensive review of the country’s critical skills, general work, business and intra-company transfer visas.
In the report, the team led by former home affairs director-general Mavuso Msimang stated that while the country suffers from high unemployment rates, the majority of those who are unemployed are not highly skilled and are not competing for the same vacancies as the global talent South Africa should attract to close the skills gap.
The team included Presidency officials Saul Musker and Lawule Shumane, National Treasury microeconomic policy chief director Nomvuyo Guma and Dr Sean Philips, who was working on the government’s structural reforms in the Treasury before being appointed water and sanitation director-general in December 2021.
”Unemployed South Africans typically lack the skills, specialisation or experience required to fill vacancies for which skilled foreign nationals are required. The long-term solution must be to improve the skills development system in South Africa.
In the short-term, however, skilled immigration can alleviate the skills gap, ensuring that businesses can operate at capacity and compete in global markets,” reads the report, adding that the country must aim to minimize inefficiencies and obstacles to allowing such labour to enter.
According to the report, census data also confirms the positive benefits of skilled immigration given the higher taxes paid by skilled foreign nationals, who traditionally do not deplete public resources.
”Far from displacing South African employment, more than one job will be created for South Africans for everyone highly skilled foreign national that is attracted to the country,” the report continued.
In addition, the team found that currently South Africa’s immigration system has allowed large numbers of unskilled and low-skilled immigrants to enter the country, often outside of the legal system, but has placed severe limitations on the entry of high-skilled immigrants.
The report also indicates that while there are an estimated 3.95 million foreign nationals present in the country only a few thousands critical skills visas are approved each year.
Among the team’s recommendations are the introduction of a points-based immigration system to determine eligibility for a work visa according to whether the non-citizen is able to score above a certain threshold of points taking into account factors such as education level, professional specialisation, wealth and language.
Another recommendation is that the requirement to submit a radiological report be removed as it no longer serves a rational public health purpose and that this should be required from successful applicants only before they enter the country.
A new requirement will be submitting police clearance certificates for countries lived in for 12 months or more in the last five years only instead of the current system of visa applicants needing a police clearance certificate from each country they have lived in for 12 months or more since they were 18.
Msimang and his team also suggested adoption of approaches followed by the US, UK and other countries for the visa regime to include profiles flagged on international and local databases or if an individual will be working in a field impacting national security.
The current requirement that foreign nationals already with job offers but have not qualified in a South African university to verify their qualifications with the SA Qualifications Authority (Saqa) and provide proof of membership of an established South African professional body should be replaced with a process requiring trusted employers to be responsible for verifying qualifications.
”Only critical skills and other visa applicants who do not have a job offer from an employer at the time of application should be required to obtain verification of their qualifications through Saqa,” state the recommendations.
The Department of Home Affairs has undertaken to publish revised immigration regulations by the end of next month after approval by the office of the state law advisor and public consultation.
The revised immigration regulations are expected to include removing the requirement for radiological report and introducing a police clearance certificate from each country that an applicant has lived for 12 months or more during the past five years instead of since they were 18.
On removing the requirement for registration with a professional body, home affairs is consulting the departments of trade, industry and competition and employment and labour as well as Saqa.
The home affairs department is also developing a points-based immigration system.
”The points-based system will introduce additional pathways for highly skilled applicants, including awarding points based on level of qualification and an income threshold, and will streamline the current critical skills visa and general work visa,” the department in its implementation plan for the report.