‘Without skills, SA on a path to nowhere’

The logistics industry has not escaped South Africa’s widely documented skills shortage, said Abrie de Swardt, marketing director for IMPERIAL Logistics, at the launch of the 7th State of Logistics survey in Johannesburg last week. “The logistics sector cannot ignore the problem of skills for much longer. We don’t need a dual strategy but rather a triple strategy to close the gap between schools and university, and university and the work place,” he said. Citing a survey by Grant Thornton, De Swardt said it had been found that 34% of South Africa’s privately owned businesses considered the lack of a skilled workforce to have been the biggest constraint to business growth in recent years. “Another study has shown that South Africa has one of the lowest literacy levels in the world. The picture for maths looks even more dismal. We need to ask ourselves how we will run successful businesseses if we do not have people of world class level in terms of literacy and numeracy on board.” He said while government maintained that education and skills development remained at the core of its policies, business needed to align strategies to embrace this. “The answer lies in collaboration at various levels. From the identification of and investment in learnerships to closer working relations with the SETAs, academia and social partners.”