Incoherence in the South African labour market for intermediate skills

Abstract

This article is concerned with the production and employment of technically skilled labour at the intermediate level in South Africa. Three differing labour market pathways to intermediate skilling are identified. These are: the traditional apprenticeship route, the new ‘Learnerships’ pathway (similar to the ‘modern apprenticeship’ schemes adopted in the UK) and finally, further education and training college programmes in engineering and related technical fields. It is argued that in sharp contrast to the highly structured conditions of the artisanal ‘occupational labour market’ of yesteryear, the three training pathways that operate in South Africa today possess few linkages with each other or with employment. In addition, as access to opportunities in the labour market have opened up politically for black South Africans since the advent of democracy in 1994, so access to employment after training has weakened for this social grouping because of the lack of structured linkages between these pathways and employment, and more generally, because of the failure of the ‘new South Africa’ to create meaningful pathways from school to work.

Keywords:

• intermediate skills
• structured labour markets
• FET colleges
• apprenticeship training

Notes

1. These ‘internal’ and ‘external’ labour market concepts are derived from the seminal work of the ‘Cambridge Labour Market Studies’ group in the 1980s – concepts which were then utilised by educational sociologists writing in the 1990s (see Ryan 1981; Wilkinson 1981; Rubery, Tarling, and Wilkinson 1987; Marsden and Ryan 1991; Ashton and Green 1996; Brown, Green, and Lauder 2001).