Closing the Competence Gap of Graduates: Looking through Lens of Employability in South Africa

Description

Page: 376-382

Makhosazana Faith Vezi-Magigaba and Reward Utete (Department of Business Management, Faculty of Commerce, Administration and Law, University of Zululand, South Africa)

Most employers devote meticulous efforts to hire highly competent candidates to promote productivity and success of their organisations. Employers prefer to hire a candidate with a combination of both soft skills and hard skills. While the graduates have the required hard skills, the bulk of them usually fall short of soft skills. Lacking soft skills at the workplace has been endemic for decades and trumpeted as a key aspect that renders an employee labelled incompetent. Although there are various studies conducted on employability, there is still a growing need for a better comprehension of soft skills as a possible stimulus to employability. The milieu of poverty in South Africa is perpetuated by the massive and cataclysmic wave of the unemployment rate of young graduates who do not have more than 24 years of age which currently sits at 32,6%, while those aged between 24 to 34 years is pegged at 22,4%. Despite R5,2 billion allocated to businesses in the year 2022 as an incentive for youth employment, the statistics of youth unemployment rate are still very high. The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of soft skills in enhancing the employability of graduates in South Africa. The study used a literature review method and a qualitative research approach. The data was collected from different sources which include peer-reviewed conferences, journals articles, and job advertisements. The study underscores the need for the South African government to take measures that support soft skills improvement of graduates with immediacy and urgency.