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ANA reports that several sectors in the South African economy are experiencing critical skill shortages, with information and technology, engineering, finance and health the most affected, a recent critical skills survey by Xpatweb showed.
It indicated that the country was currently in desperate need of information and communications technology (ICT) specialists, engineers, artisans, senior financial executives, health sector workers, executive managers, specialists & academics, mining executives, risk managers and foreign language speakers. "IT specialists and engineers remain top of the list of skills that are most difficult to find. Occupations in high demand in terms of the health sector, artisans, finance and ICT specialist have all increased this year," the survey report indicated. Xpatweb said IT specialists were becoming highly sought-after in the wake of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), with a report published by the World Economic Forum showing that 35% of skills considered important in today’s workforce would have changed over the next five years. Xpatweb noted that SA had had a shortfall of about 40,000 qualified artisans in 2017, forcing it to import skilled artisans from various countries to complete time sensitive projects. The latest survey results showed that this still remained an issue, with 14.15% of the respondents indicating that it was difficult to find skilled artisans. This represented an increase of 45% from last year."
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