Civil Engineering January-February 2022 | Vol 30 No 1

Civil Engineering January/February 2022 5 CEO’ S CORNER O ur construction sector currently faces material risks with little to no comfort provided by leadership that these risks will dissipate anytime soon. Risks relate to the effects of maleficence, poor work ethic, slow and in- effective implementation of procurement processes, poor budget management, lack of a clear understanding and regard for technical excellence, and environmental disasters, among a host of others. The implications of such risks having materialised and been left untreated for over a decade have short-, medium- and long-term effects on how we will activate a meaningful and aggressive build pro- gramme to deliver much-needed socio- economic value. Some of these implications are the loss of engineers in the 30 to 40 year age group who would be leading project teams; disillusionment of senior and graduate engineers in finding work; difficulty in dealing with the complexity of working with clients on site; and weak ability to deal with natural disasters, to name but a few. STRUCTURAL UNEMPLOYMENT Many of us that progress through tertiary education systems believe that our pri- mary degree may lead to employment and the benefits of employment that follow. But does our country have the correct mix and availability of skills required to support the Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan? The low labour absorption rate – currently 35% but which should ideally be 65% – suggests that we may have medium-term risks in the skills produced versus the skills demanded. This is referred to as structural unem- ployment. Such a phenomenon is exacerbated by structural inequality which has stubbornly plagued us to be- come a pathology of our democracy. Structural unemployment is caused by shifts in the economy (Covid-19 has shifted all economies) with new demands for goods and services, the adoption of technology, and workers lacking the skills required to perform their tasks. Much time has passed in our democ- racy without any real focus on addressing structural unemployment as we have not yet put measures into place to address in- equality. In addition, we have de-industrial- ised over time to become predominantly a consumer market. We purchase almost all value-added goods from our long-standing trading partners. Such partners would like us to continue in this manner and not sup- port our own industrialisation aspirations, for obvious reasons. In a capital-constrained market such as ours, we run the risk of purchasing the latest technology and skills from abroad. This will happen while we are inwardly focussed and many of our trading partners have evolved, benefitting from technology advancements. Deployment of technology has seen a reduction in the cost of doing business, re- industrialisation, and development of new supply chains, supported by strong educa- tion at secondary and tertiary levels. If we don’t acknowledge the demand to embrace technology, excellence in work ethics, and skilling ourselves equally, we will not be able to industrialise our economy, reduce our costs of doing busi- ness and make inroads into mitigating structural inequality. Overall, South Africa may become uncompetitive, ulti- mately making our industrialisation aspi- rations harder to archive and increasing dependency on the state. THE WAY FORWARD As much as I may have painted a negative outlook, the opportunity to address such a risk remains if we act early, with calculated intentions, to give real meaning to our devel- opment plans and the enablers thereof. Our leadership focus has to shift from elitism to collectivism. That will enable leaders to see shortcomings in education, entrepreneur- ship, the ability to attract funding, func- tional systems generally, the development of the African market, the ability to mitigate disasters and access to connectivity. Our focus has to be on network infra- structure, including passenger and freight transport (land, sea and air), bandwidth, water supply, and sanitation, all of which provide the opportunity to learn, grow and transform to create and maintain competi- tiveness in the global arena. An integrated approach is necessary for effective solutions to allow growth in the trajectories aligned to our plans. At present such overarching lead- ership has to be provided by the government. Strong economies, many of which are our historic trading partners, have been able to implement austerity measures for development, which enhances their value proposition to maintain existing structural arrangements and status quos. Our eco- nomic constructs remain, and so too does inequality. We have to create new markets in Africa to incentivise R&D and the crea- tion of new skills, to deploy appropriate technologies, and to generate the revenue needed to fund local development. In summary, our South African engi- neers should focus on gaining knowledge of new technology, skills in other disci- plines, and an appreciation for integrated strategy development and implementation and, most importantly, all with an ethical mindset. Organisations have to reconsider investment in R&D to deploy innovative solutions for clients. Vishaal Lutchman SAICE CEO vishaal@saice.org.za Quality education: a key opportunity in mitigating structural unemployment in civil engineering