Cape Town – At the top of the wish list for South African CEOs is for government to prioritise the creation of a skilled workforce, according to a global CEO survey.
PwC Southern Africa leader for local government, Kalane Rampai, told Fin24 that human capital is critical for any company and “its availability or lack of, will be high on any CEO's agenda”.
Seventy-eight percent of South African CEOs think it is the priority of the government to create a skilled workforce, according to PwC’s 18th Annual Global CEO Survey, with the response of 1 322 business leaders in 77 countries worldwide being added to valuable insights from 50 government representatives and state-backed CEOs.
Within the South African context, Rampai explained, “the limitations of access to higher education institutions have lead to an inability to meet the supply of scarce and critical skills in industry”.
“The standing of vocational education and training has resulted in a lack of skilled artisans entering or gaining access to TVET [Technical Vocational Education and Training Colleges]. TVET colleges have also not met the expectations and demands of the industry.
“An aging workforce is certainly not contributing to retaining skills and expertise and the general mandatory requirements of retiring expert professionals at the age of 60 certainly hasn't helped in this regard,” said Rampai, adding that the shortage of skilled workforce will push up the cost of labour and will lead to companies not producing at prices that are globally competitive.
CEO confidence
According to Rampai public leadership can facilitate a more demand-driven skills system with the help of companies.
“Improving collaboration between institutions of higher learning and industry will improve the relevance/alignment of student output to the needs...the creation of corporate universities/learning academies in the private sector can certainly go along way in addressing the needs which exist,” he said.
“The active participation of industry in programme and curriculum content [should be] aligned to critical skills needs.”
The overall survey findings show that 37% of CEOs think economic growth will improve in 2015, down from 44% last year.
But CEOs’ confidence in the growth of their own companies has held steady, with 39% worldwide saying they are ‘very confident’ their company’s revenues will grow in the next 12 months – the same as last year, though up from 36% in 2013.
Globally CEOs also placed at the top of their wish list for government attention: an internationally competitive and efficient tax system (67%), a skilled and adaptable workforce (60%) and adequate physical infrastructure (49%).
In his annual report-back to shareholders on May 29, Capitec CEO, Gerrie Fourie, highlighted the importance of the SA government’s implementation of the National Development Plan to improve infrastructure and thereby stimulate the economy.