Adcorp's Employment Index is baseless and flawed

How employment/ recruitment/ manpower agencies conduct and analyse their surveys or reports baffles me to my wits end. The report by Adcorp on South Africa's employment index is vague and baseless (http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/universities-fail-to-produce-enough-graduates-in-business-oriented-fields-2012-01-10.) Headlined "Universities fail to produce enough graduates in business-oriented fields" by Engineering News'online edition of the 10th Jan 2012, reflects poor analytical ability and senseless judgment.

Fail to produce enough graduates. What a crap? The report pointed to there currently being nearly 600 000 unemployed university graduates in South Africa, mostly in the arts, humanities and social sciences, whereas the private sector has more than 800 000 vacancies in management, engineering, law, finance, accounting and medicine. Is this not enough? Or they meant to have said something else.

Graduates in business-oriented fields’ – what a vague phrase! This perpetuates the misconception that some degrees are ‘useless’, while other degrees guarantee a competent employee. So the arts, humanities and social sciences are not business-oriented, but law and medicine are? Adcorp started as a design, advertising, marketing, research and PR company – sounds to me like a business heavily oriented in the arts and humanities? The arts and humanities include skilled business professionals such as architects and designers. The social sciences include registered medical professions such as psychology and social work. Simply doing a BCom, BEng, BSC or LLB will not probably help you to fill one of these vacancies. The 800 000 vacancies in ‘management, engineering, law, finance, accounting and medicine’ arise from a lack of particular specialties and experience within these disciplines. They are probably looking for experienced specialists, so cranking out more graduates isn't going to solve this.

So what are the details? Give us some examples, please! Moreover, the reference to ‘management’ vacancies is also broad and unclear - you can’t realistically fill a management position with a graduate straight out of varsity! This article gives little insight into the skills shortage/unemployment paradox, all it does is reinforce the fallacy that some qualifications are more valuable to society than others. Adcorp should do itself a favour and conduct another survey to determine the number of black management professionals in white owned companies and quantify their qualifications, their tenure, how long they have been trained for succession, whether there are promotion plans, how much they are getting paid and then restate their analysis on affirmative action.

In May 2011, Manpower South Africa also released a report that employers in South Africa are struggling to fill key positions, with 14% indicating that they have difficulty in finding the right talent.

The 2011 survey showed that the hardest jobs to fill were drivers, machine operators and finance staff. Drivers and machine operators? Let me contradict myself: i am speechless!