South Africa has begun taking steps to resolve its severe shortage of skills and a problem compounded by a messy work permit process.
Getting a work permit for SA has become a complex process. Image: Pixabay
A host of changes to simplify the rules governing the complex work permit regime were submitted to the state legal adviser last week and are expected to be passed into law in the coming months, said Saul Musker, Director of Strategy and Delivery Support in the South African Presidency.
Musker said that the adviser will consider them for a few weeks, before they are put out for public comment for 30 days. After that they will be taken to parliament.
Companies operating in South Africa are struggling to find skilled workers, and seen as a result of a dysfunctional education system exacerbated by emigration. Still, between 2014 and 2021 only 25 298 skilled work permit visas were approved, according to a report prepared for the presidency. More than half of applications were rejected on grounds including errors in the complex application process.
“It’s harder to come to South Africa than almost any other country in the world despite the acute shortage of skills we have,” said Musker.
“Investors are not able to grow their businesses in South Africa, or have their regional head offices here. It’s a huge and very real constraint to growth.”
Migration could lift GDP
A study cited in the report, prepared by a team working under the Presidency headed by Mavuso Msimang, a former director general of the Department of Home Affairs, projects that a moderate increase in skilled migration could lift GDP by as much as 1.2%.
Eight recommendations in the study, which was released by the Presidency in April, include a points-based system, where applicants need to meet minimum education and salary requirements in order to be granted work permits. Other recommendations included:
• Larger employers could be granted trusted employer status, which would allow them to assess qualifications of workers that they bring in without having to subject them to an onerous state verification process.
• New permit categories to ease the entry of remote workers and those working for startups should also be created.
• Ultimately, work permit applications should be able to be tracked online instead of through the submission of documents to embassies, in what then becomes largely a manual process.
The difficulty in getting work permits “definitely is one of the areas of discussion between business leaders and the authorities,” said Kuseni Dlamini, chairperson of Massmart, a unit of Walmart, and a board member of the American Chamber of Commerce in South Africa.
Empty promises
“We hear a lot of encouraging and promising pronouncements, but there is a disconnection between the pronouncements and the operations of the system,” he said.
Other measures proposed include streamlining the process and the adjudication of those

documents, boosting the capacity of the department and improving the quality of its computer systems. Currently, these systems connect to the Internet at one sixtieth of the speed of an average system in a bank.
Current requirements, which include having to submit qualifications to the South African Qualifications Authority in a time-consuming process and often having to prove that a South African cannot be found for the job, have frustrated applicants and potential employers and resulted in a massive backlog of applications.
Busi Mavuso, the CEO of lobby group Business Leadership South Africa, in an interview earlier this year echoed similar frustrations from foreign companies that have been unable to get directors into the country. There have also been complaints to her organization from the French South African Chamber of Commerce that their members had not received responses to work permit applications.
“One big impairment that we’ve been talking about for quite some time is the work visas,” she said. “It has been a problem. It continues to be a problem.”
Some changes have already been made, including doing away with the need for radiological reports to prove an applicant doesn’t have tuberculosis, and limiting the need for police clearances from the countries where an applicant has lived for five years.
A quicker permit process in Kenya, Nigeria
Until recently, applicants for a critical skills visa would need to meet 22 requirements. While processing a work visa in South Africa can take 48 weeks or more, the process in Kenya is a maximum of 12 weeks and just eight weeks in Nigeria, according to the report submitted by Msimang’s team.
According to Musker and Msimang, South Africa’s skills shortage has been created through a work-permit system that wasn’t designed for a skills-scarce country and a hostility toward foreign workers.They see this as a possible result of the high number of undocumented migrants in the country and one of the world’s highest unemployment rates.
“I found a lot of protectionism,” Msimang said in an interview. “The lamentable statistics that you talk about in terms of visas that were approved really had to do with this hostile attitude toward the utilisation of foreigners’ skills.”
This is in spite of research cited in Msimang’s report that found that each skilled employee can create more than one job for lesser-skilled workers, as well as boost productivity and competitiveness as well as adding to tax revenue.
“What appear to be excessive security concerns and labourious administrative processes unduly delay and sometimes even prevent the admittance of legitimate, crucially needed immigrants,” the team said in the report. V.4892

One of the highlighted topics: Critical Skills Visa.

- Key Insight: Is your profession on the Critical Skills List? This visa is your fast track to working in South Afr...
- This matter relates to critical skills visa and its broader implications.
- Individuals are advised to seek professional guidance.

Is your profession on the Critical Skills List? This visa is your fast trac V.6139
Click here for full article

One of the applicants, Phindile Mazibuko, became a victim of identity theft in 2012 when fraudulent transactions occurred, using her personal details.

-The Pretoria High Court found that the department of home affairs had violated constitutional rights without due process.
-Only half of Lawyers for Human Rights` test group has been unblocked, while 385 000 identities remain blocked nationwide.
-LHR appeals extension, urges affected people to seek help now.

Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) are intensifying pressure on the department of home affairs over the national ID-blocking crisis, accusing the state of acting too slowly to unblock qualifying individuals despite a landmark court ruling.

In January last year, the Pretoria High Court found that the department`s practice of blocking IDs without due process was unlawful and unconstitutional. One of the applicants, Phindile Mazibuko, a Swati citizen and South African permanent resident since 1998, fell victim to identity theft in 2012 when fraudsters used her personal details.

 V.6133
Click here for full article

The Border Management Authority (BMA) has doubled its staff at Airports in South Africa , including immigration officers.

What does this mean for travelers? V.6128
Click here for full article

The Border Management Authority (BMA) has doubled its staff at Airports in South Africa , including immigration officers.

What does this mean for travelers? V.6129
Click here for full article

A Washington state mother and her 6-year-old son have been released after spending more than three weeks in US immigration detention due to a brief trip to Canada and a small paperwork mistake, her attorney told CNN on Saturday.

Sarah Shaw, a New Zealand citizen who has lived legally in the US since she arrived in 2021, was detained at the Blaine, Washington, Customs and Border Protection checkpoint when returning home after dropping her two oldest children off at the Vancouver airport for a flight to visit their grandparents in New Zealand. Shaw, 33, chose the flight out of Vancouver because it was direct and she didn`t want her children to have to navigate a layover alone, her attorney Minda Thorward, told CNN.

 V.6130
Click here for full article

On 22 July 2025, the Gauteng High Court dismissed Sitrusrand Boerdery`s review of the Department of Employment and Labour`s refusal to issue a Working Conditions and Salary Benchmarking Certificate, an essential precondition for obtaining corporate visas under the Immigration Act.

Acting Judge Kekana AJ held that the Department`s decision was lawful, rational and procedurally fair. This judgment illustrates how businesses can - and must - structure their corporate visa applications to meet statutory requirements, and how legal practitioners should prepare robust review challenges when administrative authorities decline to recommend foreign-work permits.

 V.6131
Click here for full article

The United States could forfeit an estimated 9.4 billion dollars in visitor spending over the next three years following the introduction of a new 250 dollars `visa integrity fee,` according to industry groups, who warn the policy risks undermining tourism and costing thousands of jobs.
The United States’ decision to introduce a 250 dollars `visa integrity fee` on international visitors has triggered sharp criticism from the global tourism industry, with officials warning that the measure could deter millions of travellers and cost the U.S. economy billions.
The 250dollar `visa integrity fee,` part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed on July 4, 2025, will take effect later this year. According to immigration law firm Envoy Global, it applies to all nonimmigrant visa holders which include students, tourists, temporary workers, and business visitors particularly from African countries. V.6132
Click here for full article

The Border Management Authority (BMA) has doubled its staff at Airports in South Africa , including immigration officers.

What does this mean for travelers? V.6127
Click here for full article

1. Right to Legal Representation•You have the right to consult with a legal representative.•Contact an immigration practitioner, legal aid clinic, or attorney urgently.•Do not sign any documents without understanding them fully. 2. Section 34 of the Immigration Act•You must be brought to court with 48 hours to confirm arrest but you can remain locked up very long as courts figure out what to do with you •If you`re found to be illegally in South Africa, you may be detained for up to 30 days (extendable by a magistrate) pending deportation.•BUT this cannot happen arbitrarily. You must be informed of your rights, and Home Affairs must follow due process.- becomes a nightmare , you could lose your job , business , place to stay V.6121
Click here for full article

Driving for Bolt, Uber, Mr D, or Checkers Sixty60?If you`re undocumented, you`re risking more than just your income.The Risks if You`re Not Legal: - Vehicle impoundment - Heavy fines - Arrest & deportation - Permanent bans from working in SA V.6122
Click here for full article