LMIP dissemination activities kicked into higher gear during February and March 2014. The seminar series, co-hosted with the Human Sciences Research Council, provided a productive space in which researchers, government and other stakeholders could critically engage with emerging research findings.
Image: Dr Il-Haam Petersen and Dr Glenda Kruss presenting their paper ‘Understanding Interactive Capabilities for Skills Development in Sectoral Systems of Innovation: A Tentative Framework’ at the LMIP-HSRC Seminar Series
Dr Glenda Kruss and Dr Il-Haam Petersen of the HSRC presented a framework for understanding the interactive capabilities for skills development in sectoral systems of innovation on 27 February 2014. With reference to the sugar industry, their presentation highlighted the ways in which post-school education and training organisations interact with firms and labour market organisations to shape their core activities, in order to identify appropriate change mechanisms and strategies. This leans towards a framework for the analysis of skills demand and sectoral systems that can complement existing frameworks.
Click here to view the PowerPoint presentation.
In their presentation in the seminar series on 11 March 2014, Studying Professions in Shifting Occupational Contexts: Exploring the Symbolic Boundaries in Mechatronics, Dr Angelique Wildschut and Ms Tamlynne Meyer noted that in the current global conjuncture, occupational groups have a broader set of knowledge, skills and dispositional ranges than in the past. The research proposes a focus on “boundary work” and the use of “boundary objects” between artisanal occupations and related expert occupations, to understand current changes. Dr Wildschut argued that new debates in the world of work need to take into account knowledge intensification within lower-level occupations more robustly.
Click here to view the PowerPoint presentation.
Image: Partners from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, (l-r) Adrienne Watson, Zolile Zungu and Volker Wedekind presenting on institutional responsiveness, curricula and student employability in certain sectors
On 13 March 2014, Dr Adrienne Watson and Dr Volker Wedekind of the University of KwaZulu-Natal foregrounded the relationship between of curriculum responsiveness and employability. Dr Watson argued for the need to recalibrate the theoretical lenses through which education and training are viewed as the solution to skills shortages, enhanced employability and economic growth. They called for a multi-layered approach to open out the complexities and constraints subsumed in the supply of a skills pipeline.
Click here to view the PowerPoint presentation.
Two seminars focusing on the data aspects of the skills planning mechanism rounded off this group of seminars.
Dr Andrew Kerr of the University of Cape Town highlighted the sources of data that can be used to understand labour demand, which are available to be used for a Labour Market Intelligence System to analyse and forecast labour demand. He argued for the value of administrative data for analysing labour demand in South Africa.
Click here to view the LMIP Working Paper.
Rhodes University’s Dr David Fryer presented a paper titled Informality i<span style="font-size: xx-small;">n the South African Labour Market in Context: Indicators of the Limits to Evidence-Based Research? This paper challenges the basic understanding of informality in the labour market and argues for its reconceptualization. Positing the notion of ‘varieties of capitalism’, Fryer called for a new path in thinking through informality and in so doing, highlighted the import of this sector and requirements for its sustainability.
Click here to view the LMIP Working Paper.
In June, Professor Nhlanhla Mbatha of UNISA presented a paper co-authored with Joan Roodt, on internal migration and labour market outcomes. The research examines the ways in which migration inside South Africa impacts on rural and urban unemployment, using the 2008 and 2010 National Income Dynamics Survey data.
Click here to view the working paper.
