The pressure to obtain a tertiary level qualification in South Africa is real.

Which accounts, in a way, for the government’s insistence on making it easier and easier to obtain a bachelors pass in matric – something which will have long-term and devastating effects on the education system.

Students are for the most part convinced that a university degree will automatically result in a job post-graduation. Realistically, this isn’t the case, but a tertiary degree doesn’t hurt when you’re on the job hunt.

Take for example the Department of Labour’s job opportunities and employment report for the 2017/2018 financial year, which they have just released.

The report is generated using a combination of newspaper and online job adverts, along with data aggregated by occupation, industry and province, reports BusinessTech.

The occupation with the highest demand across the country is sales and marketing manager, followed by software developers, shop sales assistants, and retail and wholesale trade managers.

Managerial and professional occupations attracted more people with a degree or diploma, while those with less than a matric qualification sought out services and sales jobs.

“Overall, 39% of the total jobs advertised as captured in the Department of Labour database were attractive to those with degree or diploma educational achievements, followed with those with grade 12 at 25% in the financial year 2017/18.”

This means that less than 36% of the total job vacancies advertised in 2017/2018 required people with qualifications below grade 12 certificates – or were not specified.

In other words, most of the jobs advertised listed a tertiary degree or diploma as a requirement.

The Trade and Community field were the only two industries that advertised jobs attracting people from across the spectrum of educational categories. Finance, on the other hand, required more people who have passed a degree or a diploma, grade 12, postgraduate and vocational studies.

“It is also interesting to see that vocational training and certification, e.g., artisanal skills were in high demand for a person to be employed in the mining and manufacturing industries over the same period,” the report found.

Overall, 38.6% of the total job vacancies advertised in 2017/18 required people with degree or diploma educational achievements.

This implies that there is a shift to a more educated labour force leading to an increasing share of high-skilled jobs in the economy, it states.

As we enter into the fourth industrial revolution, driven by the tech industry, the job market is likely to shift even more.

Sadly, it looks like those with less than a grade 12 qualification are increasingly likely to remain unemployed.

[source:businesstech]