| Definitions - Skills
Defining ‘scarce’
and ‘critical’ skills
Scarce Skills
Scarce skills
are usually measured in terms of occupation or qualification. Both
‘occupation’ and ‘qualification’ have the merit of being relatively
straightforward to measure and readily understood. [The
term
scarce
skills refers to those
occupations characterised by a scarcity of qualified and experienced
people (current and anticipated) – in other words, occupations in
which numerical imbalances exist in employment because of a
difference between the demand for and the supply of skills.]
The Department of Labour has
also included a differentiation between absolute and relative
scarcity of skills in the definition:
(a)
Absolute scarcity
refers to suitably skilled people who are not available in the
labour market. Specific contexts in which absolute scarcities may
arise include:
·
A new or emerging occupation, i.e. there are few, if
any, people in the country with the requisite skills.
·
Firms, sectors and even the national economy are unable to
implement planned growth strategies because productivity, service
delivery and quality problems are directly attributable to a lack
of skilled people.
·
Replacement demand
would reflect an absolute scarcity where there are no people
enrolled or engaged in the process of acquiring skills that need to
be replaced (DoL, 2006c).
(b)
Relative scarcity
refers, for example, to the context where suitably skilled people
are in fact available in the labour market but they do not exhibit
other employment criteria, for example:
·
High-level work experience,
for example project management of large construction sites such as
dams or power plants.
·
Geographical location,
for example, people are unwilling to work outside of urban areas.
·
Equity considerations,
for example, there are few if any candidates with the requisite
skills from specific groups available to meet the skills
requirements of firms and enterprises (DoL, 2006c).
·
Replacement demand would reflect a relative scarcity
if there are people in education and training (formal and
work-place) who are in the process of acquiring the necessary skills
(qualification and experience) but where the lead time will mean
that they are not available in the short term to meet replacement
demand.
Critical Skills
‘Critical’ skills
refer to particular capabilities needed within an occupation,
for example, general management skills, communication and customer
handling skills, team-work skills, communication technology skills.
[The term
critical
skills refers to
particular skills within an occupation,
or the qualitative deficiencies that
may exist or develop in the skills apparatus of the existing
workforce.]
Critical’ skills, in keeping
with international trends refers to specific key or generic and “top
up” skills within an occupation. In the South African context there
are two groups of critical skills:
a) Key or generic
skills, including (in SAQA-NQF terminology) critical cross-field
outcomes. These would include cognitive skills (problem solving,
learning to learn), language and literacy skills, mathematical
skills, ICT skills and working in teams.
b) Particular
occupationally specific “top-up” skills required for performance
within that occupation to fill a “skills gap” that might have arisen
as a result of changing technology or new forms of work
organisation.
Both scarce and
critical skills must be identified at the occupational level, with
scarce skills being considered against the occupation itself and
critical skills being reflected as specific skills within the
occupation.
Process of developing the National Scarce Skills List
The National Scarce Skills
List was prepared by the Department of Labour drawing relevant data
from SETA Sector Skills Plans. Contributions were received from
several other government departments, including Home Affairs and the
Departments of Trade and Industry, Public Enterprises and Science
and Technology. Additional data obtained from other government
departments was used largely to validate the scarcities identified
in the SETA Sector Skills Plans that had been highlighted in the
National Scarce Skills List.
SETAs had identified scarcity
using the above definitions and through a process of research and
stakeholder consultation. The Department acknowledges that this
first Scarce Skills List is an indicative list. In keeping
with the Department’s adoption of a labour market demand signaling
system and process, the List consists of occupational titles
against which scarcity has been identified. Numbers have not been
assigned to the scarcity except for the purpose of the Work Permit
Quota List to be published by the Department of Home Affairs.
The Department is currently
already engaged in a process of updating this first List
based on SETA’s Sector Skills Plan Updates. The scarce skills
information reflected in these Plans and mechanisms for identifying
scarcity have been improved through the experience and lessons
learnt during the development of the first List and it is the
intention of the Department to assist SETAs to ensure that the
scarce skills signaling processes and data are substantively
updated, reliable and serve their sectoral and national purposes.
Purpose of the
National Scarce Skills List
The National Master Scarce
Skills List brings together a number of labour market demand
side identification processes and represents a growing coherence
across government and economic sector actors in identifying and
forecasting skills demand.
There is a twin foundation
for the Master Scarce Skills List. The first lies in the
adoption of a clear definition for Scarce and Critical Skills,
initially drafted and developed between the Department and its
skills development sectoral intermediaries, the SETAs. These
definitions were then negotiated and amended with relevant line
departments in the Skills committee of the government’s economic
cluster, i.e. between the Department of Labour and the Departments
of Education, Home Affairs, Public Enterprises, Science &
Technology, and Trade & Industry.
The second lies in the
adoption by the Department of Labour of the Organising Framework of
Occupations which SETAs have utilized in the drafting of their 5
Year Sector Skills Plans. This Framework allows different economic
sectors to identify and forecast skills shortages at a sufficiently
detailed and meaningful level of the occupation for a variety of
strategies to be designed to address the scarcity.
The List is intended to serve
several purposes:
1. For
the Department of Labour and its statutory skills development
intermediaries, the national list provides a set of indicators for
skills development interventions
2. For
the Department of Education and public education and training
institutions, the national list provides a set of indicators for
course development and career guidance that should be provided to
learners and communities, including schools, FET Colleges,
Universities, Universities of Technology and learners across these
institutions
3. For
the Department of Home Affairs, the national list provides a basis
for establishing the Work Permit Quota List and for evaluating
employer-sponsored applications for work permits
4. For
the national government and national initiatives such as JIPSA, the
national list begins to provide a platform for targeted
interventions and the development of mechanisms to monitor and
evaluate both the success and impact of measures aimed at redressing
particular scarcities
Given that the purpose of
the list is to identify trends and appropriate interventions, the
relative “amount” of scarcity is indicated as a rounded, aggregate
figure. This method has been used to ensure that the National Scarce
Skils List remains a central device reflecting the Department of
Labour’s approach to labour market trends analysis for skills
development and not a device for uncritical manpower planning.
It must be noted that the
rounded, approximate figures reflect an order of magnitude and not
the potential negative impact on growth and development. For
example, the magnitude of scarcity for economic development policy
and planning skills may be less than 50 while the inability to
address this scarcity may result in unsustainable local economic
development accompanied by increased poverty and unemployment in the
particular locality.
Core Functions (Form EEA2, Employment Equity Regulations)
Core Operation Function positions are those
that directly relate to the core business of an organisation and may
lead to revenue generation, e.g. sales, production, etc.
Support Functions (Form EEA2, Employment Equity Regulations)
Support Function positions refers to those
positions that provide infrastructure and other enabling conditions
for revenue generation, e.g. human resources, corporate services,
etc
Links
Key Issues - Accelerated
and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA)
Department of Labour -
www.labour.gov.za
|
Member
Content 
