November 2008

Migrants barred from 200,000 jobs – but good news for South Africa

The number of jobs workers from outside the European Union can now fill in the United Kingdom has been significantly cut back by 200,000, causing UK ministers to call it the "tightest ever" migration list. But this is good news for South Africa as many of these skilled workers will be looking at other countries for job opportunities, including South Africa.

This is according to Karen Geldenhuys, MD of ICT-focused recruitment company, Abacus Recruitment. “This is a chance to reverse our brain drain. It is a chance for the SA government to seize this opportunity to attract skills that we need,” she said.

According to an online UK publication, www.contractorUK, 800 000 jobs will be open to non-EU workers from the end of November. But this is down from the estimated 1 million vacancies under the work permit system.

Geldenhuys said: “This type of opportunity only comes around once or twice in a decade. The government needs to recognize this as a golden opportunity – and it needs to ensure that people who apply for jobs here do not have to face a quagmire of red tape. If we make it too difficult to bring in new skills from overseas we will simply compound our skills shortage. Additionally, there has been a meltdown in the UK financial services and banking industries. While there is talk of banks cutting up to 3 000 jobs in SA, we might be in a position to attract much-needed skills from financial and banking workers in the UK who are now losing their jobs in the UK.’

She said that while there is “more than a modicum” of political instability and in-fighting in SA at the moment, the launch of a new opposition party, COPE, does show that there is, nonetheless, “robust debate and an open democracy in the country”.

‘Despite the ANC government’s opposition to the new party, the fact that this has happened has shown that this is still an open society. The fact that people now have more political choices – this points to a healthy democracy. There are naturally still a number of negative facts that could prevent people from looking for work here – such as the high crime rate, high interest rates, a possibility that we might move into an official recession and, of course, the ongoing Zuma saga.

“On the upside,” said Geldenhuys, “from an economic point of view, it does appear that SA is weathering the global economic turmoil better than many other countries, even though consumers and businesses are facing a squeeze. It shows that our economy is in good shape compared to other countries. This could also be an attraction.”