Presenter: Lindsay Williams Guest(s): Stuart Chait

Booming markets create their own problems - such as a skills shortage. The biggest problem facing the South African property and construction industry is a massive shortage of labour skills - according to Stuart Chait, chief executive of Property Partners in Cape Town

LINDSAY WILLIAMS: How serious is this potential shortage - is it a real shortage?

STUART CHAIT: There’s a huge amount of building plans that are currently being promulgated through the various councils across the country - building prices are on the increase. There is a massive shortage of skilled labour - obviously there’s no shortage of unskilled labour - from the bottom end, through to your craftsmen, and up to the top being your educated professionals.

LINDSAY WILLIAMS: So you’re talking about the bloke that gets the wheelbarrow full of bricks - who delivers it to the bloke who lays the bricks - right up to the civil engineer, the architect?

STUART CHAIT: Correct. What’s really happening is that since the Soweto riots in 1976 the property market in South Africa has been through boom and bust situations - with high interest rates. That has created an inconsistent environment, and professionals that have been trained at UCT - not unlike your doctors who’ve trained in South Africa - have all emigrated and gone to live overseas. So we’ve got an industry with shrinking intellectual capital, and a massive unskilled labour market, in an industry that is currently doing very well that is doing nothing re-train those unskilled labourers into skilled labour. I think there needs to be a collaboration between government and the players in the industry to do something about it.

LINDSAY WILLIAMS: The problem is, of course, that people are needed right now - the bloke starting a development tomorrow needs to start hiring labour straight away. It’s all very well talking about development, and skills training, and collaboration - the fact is if the labourers aren’t there, and the engineers aren’t there, and the architects aren’t there and the town planners aren’t there - then the thing can’t go ahead. What is the problem with importing labour from overseas in the short term? After all, we keep on going on about how we’re members of the global economy - if we are truly members of the global economy, then global talent should come in as well?

STUART CHAIT: That is exactly what is going to happen, and it’s going to be catastrophic for South Africa - because we are sitting with all this unskilled labor that are desperate to learn, and to learn a trade, or to become a professional, and to enhance themselves - nothing has been done about it. What is, effectively, going to happen - the foreign market is now going to come in - not unlike the Eastern Europeans that have gone into Western Europe, and the UK, and they are going to steal jobs from the people that should have those jobs.

LINDSAY WILLIAMS: Stealing may be a strong word - but I see your point. What is the solution? We need to do something straight away - before this boom ends - in order to create employment, and also to keep the construction industry going? What are your main suggestions?

STUART CHAIT: You say before the boom ends - the boom is not going to end! The residential market is peaking, but the office market hasn’t even taken off yet. What do we do about it? It’s very simple - you have got townships that are full of unemployed, and unskilled people - the industry gets together with government, and local government, to stand together and train these people. The Department of Public Works and various parastatals - in terms of the empowerment charter - are going to put a lot of property on the market. There are a lot of big tenders coming out - in the form of infrastructure, roads, dams, bridges, etc. - if people do not participate in the training scheme - I think that they shouldn’t qualify to be able to tender.

LINDSAY WILLIAMS: A good point - let’s hope that somebody is listening. People who are unemployed at the moment - they get jobs and skills. The construction industry benefits, and from the construction industry other industries benefit as well.

STUART CHAIT: One step further.

LINDSAY WILLIAMS: Yes.

STUART CHAIT: The government is spending just under R200-billion in infrastructure over the next five years - that would actually take up the loss of jobs in the gold mining industry if dealt with properly.