This shortage is even more severe in South Africa, and without appropriate skills in the country, and without a strong and sustained global recovery from the crisis, the domestic economy will struggle to grow sufficiently to make appreciable inroads into our persistent unemployment problem.
As has been well documented, the global crisis hit different countries in different ways, and how countries were affected was determined in part by policy responses as well as by different structural features. Whereas the recession in South Africa was relatively brief and shallow, in line with most emerging market economies, the recovery has lagged that of our peers.