Conference tackles challenges in the labour market

The Culture, Art, Tourism, Hospitality and Sport Sector Education and Training Authority (CATHSSETA) presented the inaugural CATHSSETA Sector Skills Conference on September 3 and 4.

The event saw experts in different sectors gather at the Birchwood Hotel and OR Tambo Conference Centre, Boksburg to discuss challenges in the labor market and the absorption of skills into the economy.

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Explaining the overview of the conference, CATHSSESTA board chairperson Themba Ndhlovu said the main goals and objectives of the conference are mainly to get the stakeholders to sit together in one room and engage on where they are taking the sector in the next five years.

“We are saying in five years’ time, these are the main priorities that we want to thrive and achieve.

“In those priorities we’ve also determined that we must implement high-impact projects because they have been defined as projects that are over and above what we are normally doing,” said Ndhlovu.

Ndhlovu also touched on the challenges they currently see when it comes to SETA learners not finding employment after finishing their learnership programmes, and the difficulties faced by the SMMEs when it comes to growing their enterprises.

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He said, “This is a critical problem that we do experience. When someone has completed a learnership we expect that they are ready to permanently employed. However, they remain unemployed,’’ said Ndhlovu.

Ndhlovu then said the Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs) face challenges such as lack of funding, limited marketing access and relevant skills, which hinder their growth.

“We must engage more closely with the SMMEs to understand the problem they are encountering.

“Some of them need knowledge and understanding before they can get help, and they need to be made aware that there are ways to get help through skills and education from SETAs, because by doing that they would be fully equipped enough to combat the hike of unemployment rates,’’ he said.

During the conference, various speakers emphasised the urgency of taking steps to address skills development programmes’ beneficiaries not being absorbed afterwards.

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Speaking to the media, director of the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, Dr Robert Nkuna said many beneficiaries are at home without jobs and struggle to start their own businesses.

“We want to move away from that because many people have been saying that we’re training people but they don’t get employed, so we need to do it deliberately, so that if SETA trains them, there must be someone already waiting to absorb them,’’ he said.

Nkuna further stated that since the SETAs were not responsible for creating policies, but training people, they are calling on the government to intervene and implement the policies that align with the needs of SETAs.