Hoping to reverse the skills flight

The haemorrhage of skilled and educated people from both the public and private sectors in Swaziland, which is already facing a chronic shortage of capacity, will continue unabated unless lucrative jobs start keeping people at home, a government survey has found.

"There is an unmet demand for high levels of education. The turnover rate for experienced workers is high," the newly released National Skills Survey noted. People with higher levels of education and bankable skills have been lured away by better wages in neighbouring countries like South Africa.

"It's a chicken and egg situation: because there are no opportunities, young people, when they are educated and acquire skills, leave the country, so there is a shortage of skilled workers and this dissuades investors from coming and creating opportunities for people like the ones who left," said Zwandile Nsibandze a policy analyst for the Swazi government.

For years, literature from the Ministry of Enterprise and Employment as well as the Swaziland Industrial Development Corporation, set up by government to entice foreign direct investment in the kingdom, has asserted that Swaziland was a good location for investment because of its skilled workforce.

An informal lifeline is not enough

According to the survey, 75 percent of workers in Swaziland are employed in the private sector and most have a secondary education or lower. "The private sector has grown faster than the public sector, but it is male dominated and less educated," the report said.

The survey credited the informal sector for offering self-employment and acting as a safety valve for the country's 40 percent unemployment in the formal sector, but those in the informal sector found it hard to move into the formal one, and could be trapped by "low education and skills levels".

Analysing the public sector, the report found that "Many positions are held by non-qualified individuals. There are more skills demanded than are currently available, and the shortage of higher professionals is acute."

Even non-governmental organisations, which have been performing social welfare duties in the face of government limitations during the current humanitarian crisis, were "inadequately endowed with relevant human resources", the survey said.

Education, skills and a work ethic

"The study clearly links education levels and skills. Underlying the report is a belief that the work ethic in Swaziland is not what it should be," Nsibandze commented.

Addressing the issue of a work ethic, Prime Minister Sibusiso Dlamini said, "The old saying 'there is no hurry in Africa' has to be cast aside. Swazis need to be taught to be punctual. This lesson must be instilled from grade school."

...the work ethic in Swaziland is not what it should be

Minister of Economic Planning and Development, Rev Absalom Dlamini, said government would respond to the survey with a nationwide skill enhancement programme.

"Skilled human resources is a prerequisite for attracting investment and important for fighting poverty. Providing skilled human resources is not a choice for government," Dlamini said.

It pays to leave

During survey presentation, Enterprise and Employment Minister Lutfo Dlamini tried to put a positive spin on the decade-old loss of capacity by saying it was good for the country in the long run.

"What is popularly known as the brain drain is believed to have an adverse effect to the economies of least developed countries. Contrary to this assertion, the movement of skilled manpower from one country to another may result in a 'brain bank', because when these relocate to their countries of origin, they bring back with them a wealth of experience and skill that could come handy in developing the economies of those countries," the employment minister said.

However, he did not indicate what would induce workers who had left Swaziland to return. When contacted, the employment ministry said it had no statistics to show a reverse migration of skilled and educated Swazi workers.

jh/tdm/he/oa