Skilled workers'' placement: talks soon to tap huge South African job market

Pakistan is likely to export hundreds of thousands of skilled workers to South Africa which is facing an acute shortage of skilled workers, official sources told Business Recorder on Friday. Both countries, they said, would soon hold negotiations and reach an agreement with a view to matching demand and offers of jobs in various economic sectors in South Africa.
Quoting Pakistan''s High Commissioner to Pretoria, South Africa, they said that South Africa is currently facing acute shortage of skilled workers in all sectors of the economy. "South Africa requires 10,700 engineers, 3,600 project managers, 8,800 technicians and draughtsman, 45,000 electricians, boiler makers and laboratory assistants, 27,000 miners, 220,000 farm workers, 5,975 high skilled financial professionals,
26,000 information technology professionals, 35,000 Nurses, 5,000 doctors, 10,000 pharmacists and 350,000 people to fill managerial and technical posts," the sources said. The High Commissioner has suggested that a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) may be signed between Pakistan''s Ministry of Human Resource Development and South Africa''s Ministry of Manpower.
The ministry is said to have prepared a draft MoU for export of manpower and sought suggestions from Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Interior, and Economic Affairs Division and got the same vetted from the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs.
The Ministry of Human Resource Development maintains that the government should formalise arrangements with South African government on migration matters for job placements of our professionals/workers. In terms of Rule 16 of the Rules of Business, 1973, Ministry of Human Resource Development has sought Cabinet''s approval to start formal negotiations with the government of South Africa.