The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) released the new critical skills list in February 2022. Shortly thereafter the DHA’s published certain directives with regards to the implementation of the new list, and it further made certain changes to the processes and rules that had previously been applicable to critical skills visas. The changes to the processes and rules have made it considerably more difficult to obtain a critical skills visa. The primary changes that have made it so much more difficult to acquire a critical skills visa are the following:

HIGHER EDUCATION REQUIREMENTS:

Prior to the changes most of the critical skills occupations required formal education requirements of NQF Level 7 which is your typical bachelor’s degree level. Almost all of the occupations now require level 8 NQF’s which is typically an Honours level degree. Certain occupations require a level 9 NQF which is a Masters level of education. Requiring such a high level of formal education has significantly shrunk the pool of potential applicants that can apply for a critical skills visa.

PROFESSIONAL BODY MUST ISSUE LETTER CONFIRMING APPLICANTS SKILLS OR QUALIFICATIONS AND APPROPRIATE POST QUALIFICATION EXPERIENCE:

The Regulations to the Immigration Act requires that applicants submit a letter from the professional body confirming the applicants skills or qualifications and their appropriate post qualification experience. Immigration Directive 22 of 2014 however provided that where an applicant provided a certificate of membership of the professional body then an additional letter from the professional body confirming the skills and post qualification experience was not required.

Unfortunately following the release of the Critical skills list Immigration Directive 22 of 2014 was withdrawn. The consequence of this is that if an applicant does not have professional experience of at least 2 years then the professional body will not issue such a letter, and the applicant will not be able to submit a critical skills visa application.

This immediately eliminates all recent graduates from applying for critical skills visas. In particular, it is having a devastating effect on recent foreign graduates from South African educational institutions. Such persons are being left with no choice but to leave South Africa as soon as their studies are completed as they don’t have the required post qualification work experience to apply for a critical skills visa. After contributing so much to the persons education this is a highly undesirable situation for the country to be faced with.

APPLICANTS MUST HAVE “PROFESSIONAL” REGISTRATION WITH THE PROFESSIONAL BODY:

This point is closely related to the previous one. The DHA’s do not regard “candidate” membership of a professional body as sufficient. The applicant must have “professional” membership. However even though the applicant may have the required qualifications the professional body will not provide them with “professional” membership unless they have at least 2 years of post qualification experience. As per the previous point this is particularly affecting graduates of South African tertiary institutes, and such persons are now having to leave the country (probably never to return) in order to obtain the relevant work experience.

Furthermore, these changes have led to particular problems for those on existing critical skills visas which were acquired when the educational requirements were at a lower NQF level. Such persons may not be able to renew their visas based on the fact that they don’t have the required NQF level even though they have considerable skills and experience within that particular area of critical skills. This makes no sense.

WITHDRAWAL OF THE WAIVER FOR FOREIGN GRADUATES FROM SOUTH AFRICAN TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS:

In 2016 a waiver was introduced that allowed foreign graduates that studied at South African tertiary institutions towards degrees in the areas of critical skills to apply for Permanent Residence without having to submit a certificate of membership of the professional body as well as without having to have 5 years post qualification experience.

This waiver has now been withdrawn. As illustrated above such graduates also won’t be able to apply for a temporary residence critical skills visa as they won’t have the required 2 years post qualification experience to join the professional body as a professional member.

12 MONTH VISA TO SEEK WORK REMOVED:

Prior to the changes applicants would have been able to apply for a 12 month critical skills visa that allowed them to enter South Africa and remain in the country for a 12 month period in order to look for a job. This option has been removed and all critical skills visas must now include an offer of employment.

LONG PROCESSING TIMES FOR SAQA EVALUATION:

As if the above changes introduced by the DHA’s hadn’t added enough barriers for a critical skills visa the processing times for the evaluation of foreign qualifications by SAQA have increased substantially. Prior to Covid-19 the processing times were around 4 – 6 weeks. However, the processing times are now around 4 – 6 months. This is unacceptable and if we then consider a similar or longer processing time for the professional body registration one is looking at nearly 12 months before the applicant has even submitted the visa application.

We have already discussed on the blog the very long processing times for visa applications and if one takes all of the above into account then it is quite possible that the South African company wishing to recruit a foreign person may have wait in excess of 18 months before the person is finally able to begin work. Clearly this is not viable for the local company, and as a result will the company willsuffers skill shortages within its work force.