Stefanie De Saude Darbandi, immigration and citizenship law specialist at De Saude Darbandi Attorneys, writes that thousands of skilled people working in SA could face visa renewal challenges, or even be forced to leave the country, if their job descriptions have been cut from the latest SA critical skills list.

The draft list was recently released for public comment. As the first amendment since 2014, the new list is long overdue. However, there is cause for concern that the new list is dramatically shorter than the list in force, with only 126 categories. If the list is approved in its current state, foreigners whose skills are no longer included may be unable to renew their visas and find themselves and their families being forced to leave. Designations that have been eliminated include agricultural scientists, corporate GMs, telecommunications & ICT solutions architects, security network specialists, database specialists, foreign language speakers for specialist language & technical sales support, a broad range of specialist engineers, biochemists, biological and environmental scientists, water resource scientists, astronomers and physicists. Doctoral qualifications acquired abroad have also been removed from the list, raising concerns about the new list’s impacts on academia and cross-border skills transfer and knowledge sharing. Moreover, the new list does not match the department of higher education & training’s list of occupations in high demand. Importantly, the new list requires virtually all applicants to have academic qualifications, but does not make provision for work experience. De Saude Darbandi points out that a balance needs to be achieved between directly creating employment for South Africans and encouraging skilled people and business investors to enter the country, where they can create jobs, participate in skills transfer and help grow the economy.

• Read Stefanie De Saude Darbandi’s article in full at BusinessLive

Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page