LMI programme > Publications

SETA Labour Market Survey: Case studies of firms' experiences


Date posted:

2022/11/01

Publication year:

2016

Corporate author/s:

Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC); Labour Market Intelligence Partnership (LMIP); Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET)

Person/s author/s:

Pillay, Kavisha; Cassim, Aalia; Steenkamp, Francois; Naidoo, Karmen

Output-type:

research report

Format:

pdf

The overarching purpose of the Sector Education and Training Authority (SETA) Labour Market Survey was to collect information that would assist in informing the Department of Higher Education and Training's (DHET) strategy on how to address one of its key mandates, namely skills planning. The survey will therefore serve as one of the suggested tools emanating from the Labour Market Intelligence Partnership (LMIP) to help establish a credible skills-planning mechanism. The survey called for collaboration among the relevant role players in order to achieve this purpose - which is an important step in the development of a credible skills planning mechanism. Furthermore, we consider whether this survey provides better-quality data from firms, thereby leading to more meaningful insights into skills planning. Therefore, the purpose of these case studies is to gain a deeper understanding of the systems, human resources, and time necessary for each firm to answer the questionnaire. We interviewed firms with the objective of understanding the practical, administrative and technical issues that arose in collecting data, from the perspective of the respondent. These issues include converting employee job titles into six-digit Organising Framework of Occupations (OFO) codes; the fact that the survey asked for certain information which firms do not find useful to collect; limited human resources; and the timing of the surveys. This exercise allowed us to uncover the main reasons why some firms were able to answer the questionnaire with ease, while others experienced difficulties. We selected two firms that answered the questionnaire well and two that answered it poorly in order to juxtapose the experience of these different firms. These firms are based either in Gauteng or the Western Cape.

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