Southern Africa is facing significant skills shortages. This is evident in countries such as South Africa, where the scarcity of particularly high-skilled workers in sectors including engineering, medicine and senior management has the potential to limit the country’s long-term economic growth.1 A recent report2 by Adcorp, a labour market specialist, estimates that there are 470,000 vacancies in South Africa’s private sector which are currently not filled because of unavailable skills. These shortages are attributed to ‘brain drain’ from South Africa, immigration restrictions on high-skilled foreigners and failings in the education system.3 South Africa is not alone — regional neighbours such as Namibia also report that their economic growth targets are stymied by shortages of workers in industries that are critical to their economies.4
