Our country is grappling with a paradox that strikes at the heart of our economic and social challenges — millions of people unable to find work, notably educated young people, while businesses struggle to fill vacancies for technical, artisan and digital skills.
Unemployment among youth aged 15-34, who make up about half of SA’s population, is at crisis levels — 43.8% nationally are unemployed, and more than 50% in the Eastern Cape.
Yet, the country’s skills mismatch rate is estimated at more than 50%, meaning more than half the available skills do not meet what employers need, at a time when rapid technological disruption is fundamentally reshaping the manufacturing landscape.
Advances in technologies such as 3D printing, robotics, artificial intelligence, the industrial internet of things, and autonomous systems are transforming production processes, enhancing productivity and improving competitiveness.
However, without the skills to fully implement and manage digital and advanced manufacturing technologies, local manufacturers face reduced productivity, limited export readiness, and weakening of their global competitiveness.
In the World Economic Forum’s 2025 Future of Jobs report, SA companies track precisely with the global figure of 63% of employers who cite lack of skills, particularly technology-related skills, as their greatest barrier to transforming business to remain competitive by meeting the demands of technology advancement and the green transition.
Drilling down to local level, the Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber’s recent skills audit in the manufacturing sector, which is currently undergoing finalisation, found a “double lock” to technology advancement.
This has revealed that while companies are willing to invest, more than 85% rate the readiness of their workforce to transition to a digitally-driven manufacturing environment as only “moderate”, while 12.8% rate their internal capacity as low.
Similarly, when forecasting technology adoption over the next 12 to 36 months, more than 80% of local employers cited a lack of in-house expertise to implement and manage the needed technologies, and a lack of foundational digital or technical skills, as primary barriers to digital upgrades and transferring employees to new, technology-based roles.
Nelson Mandela Bay manufacturers now rank skills shortages equally with energy challenges and market competition as the primary risks to long-term manufacturing sustainability.
The issue is not a lack of people to fill available jobs, but a deep disconnect between the skills that job-seekers have acquired in the education system, and the skills that industry actually needs.
The Chamber’s soon to be launched comprehensive skills audit in the local manufacturing sector, to be followed up in other key sectors, is a collaboration with Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator as the anchor partner of our Skills Development Desk.
This local, on-the-ground research is a proactive response; using local data to design local solutions in reskilling, upskilling and capacity-building to close the gap between high unemployment and critical skills shortages.
The audit covered 54 manufacturing companies, a broad scope across the Bay of business sizes and sectors, including automotive components, metals processing and fabrication, plastics and polymer manufacturers, chemicals/gas/petroleum operations, fast-moving consumer goods manufacturers, and specialist engineering companies; together employing more than 11,400 people.
Local employers report that the impact of technical and analytical skills shortages directly translates into quantifiable operational losses due to downtime, production disruptions, increased scrap and waste, and logistics inefficiencies — degrading business performance and increasing costs.
The report highlights that to address both high unemployment and industry’s critical need for future-fit skills to sustain manufacturing in Nelson Mandela Bay, we need to re-imagine and re-invent a more practical and industry-led approach to skills development.
As an example, the Chamber’s Skills Development Desk is pioneering industry-led training of digital process technicians equipped with the skills to operate in a digitally-driven Industry 4.0 workplace.
Unlike conventional training, design of the programme started with the identified future industry need and worked backward to ensure that the 50 youth participants are equipped with relevant skills linked directly to real job opportunities.
Following their initial technical training facilitated by Jendamark and supported by Stellantis, the participants have been placed with local manufacturers for 12-month paid internships to gain workplace experience.
A positive signal of the impact is that some have already been hired into permanent positions to follow their internship.
This highlights the potential impact of targeted skills development interventions, stronger industry-led education alignment, and expanded technical training pathways to ensure that the local workforce can meet the evolving needs of industry.
Further interventions in the pipeline include accredited technical trades training by industry partners, aligned to the key skills deficiencies identified in the audit; leveraging existing company training academies for collaboration and expanded reach; and an international agreement in progress for training in Just Energy Transition skills.
It is clear we need to forge more collaborative, more practically impactful relationships between employers, tertiary education institutions, training providers, unions, and government agencies such as Setas.
Skills development needs to be demand-led and responsive, with industry taking the lead in determining future skills needs, supported by a more coordinated skills development system that better integrates (and accelerates) curriculum development in education and training institutions.
The audit establishes such a foundation for ongoing engagement, continuous learning, and adaptive planning, for the skills development ecosystem to evolve in step with industry’s evolution.
The skills audit is a call to action: by leveraging its insights and recommendations, we have the opportunity for Nelson Mandela Bay to lead in industry-driven skills development that strengthens our manufacturing base, improves employment outcomes, and enhances our overall economic competitiveness.
Resolving the paradox is possible.
- Lunga Mjodo is strategic initiatives manager at the Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber.
