The Talent Issue

As someone who works in the field of recruiting, the issue of finding talent in South Africa is something I encounter on a daily basis.

South Africa is a country rich in resources, with some of the best infrastructure and one of the highest GDPs in Africa, and yet, unemployment is sitting at a staggering 25% (unofficially this stat is said to be as high as 40%).

It's gotten to the point that some of the beggars on the street corners in Sandton are not asking for change but are holding out their resume, asking for a job.

There is a huge population of South Africans looking for gainful employment, but the issue with this workforce is that they aren't necessarily employable.

As more and more international organizations bring their business to the continent, often their largest untapped market, they tend to touch down in Johannesburg, which appears as a relatively developed and stable hub for them to service Southern Africa (the main hubs being Joburg, Nairobi and Lagos).

This sounds like good news, a growing economy, a young workforce ready to fill those positions locally, but herein lies the rub, race still plays a role in the daily life of South Africa.

It's key to remember here that it was only 20 years ago that Apartheid fell and non-white South Africans were given the liberties they should always have been afforded. And while great strides have been made to bring equality for all, there are still lasting effects of that era which can be seen today.

Black South Africans, while the largest population in the country, remain the most marginalized, many living in townships where schools are not up to standard, teachers are not effective and dropout rates (due to various external barriers also) are unacceptable. South Africa's math and science scores were ranked very last in a study comparing 144 countries' student test scores. On the flip side, every white South African I have met attended a private school.

In order to try to bring equality into the workforce, the ANC (South Africa's ruling party since 1994) came up with a plan to ensure non-white South Africans were being hired as a way to tackle the staggering unemployment levels, which are heavily skewed towards Black South Africans, the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) policy was put in place.

B-BBEE regulation measures any enterprise based in South Africa with more than 50 employees, on a set of criteria, including percentage of black ownership, employees, vendors used, skills development offered, etc. Based on this criteria, each organization is given a score (1 being the best) and if you have a poor score, it is very difficult to do business in South Africa. As an example, one liquor company was threatened to have their government-issued liquor license taken away if they did not improve their score - that's a dealbreaker.

Essentially what has happened, is the government is trying to battle the symptoms without understanding the root cause. The government has implemented this policy to force companies into hiring non-white South Africans, but they aren't properly educating their students to build them into candidates that meet that standards of the organizations in the market.

Are there smart, talented, highly-skilled non-white South Africans? ABSOLUTELY! But many of these candidates are still behind in terms of resume & cv writing, interview preparation, and presentation skills (don't get me wrong, South Africa as a whole needs improvement in these areas, but the student's from privileged backgrounds certainly have a leg-up). The high-achieving candidates who have learned these skills are highly sought after and it becomes extremely competitive to hire them locally. Or they decide to take advantage of international opportunities, and as an expat myself, I can't blame them!

We work tirelessly to combat these issues and hire non-white South Africans into our firm, not just for our B-BBEE score, but also because having a diverse staff brings great value, unique perspectives and a positive culture. But it's tough, we can only take a candidate so far with resume writing workshops and interview prep sessions. Without the foundation of a solid education, these candidates will not have the skills needed for the job.

At one point, the solution seemed to be bringing in foreign workers to help train the local staff and work off an apprenticeship model to get new hires upskilled quickly, hence why I am here, but under more strict regulations from the government, it is now becoming more and more difficult to get work visas for South Africa.

Unfortunately, unless some major educational reform (teacher assessments, math and science curriculum improvements, etc.) is put in place soon, I see this talent drain being the biggest pitfall of the South African economy.