Exclusion of foreign language speakers on the draft list
Call centres around South Africa raised concerns at the exclusion of foreign language speakers from the Critical Skills Draft List published in March 2021. The draft list made available to the public in 2021 showed that the entire occupation of foreign language specialists would be removed However, many businesses within South Africa rely on foreign language speaking staff to make connections with clients abroad. Thus, it was important that these businesses be heard, and their required skills be included in the new Critical Skills List.
Certain Specialist language skills included and other’s excluded
The Critical Skills List published in 2014 included languages such as German, Swiss German, Flemish, Greek, Swedish, Danish, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Mandarin and French. The new revised list sees the inclusion of a portion of these specialist languages, however languages that did not make the new Critical Skills List, despite requests to include same, are Portuguese, Arabic, Russian and Brazilian. The most established sector, utilising Foreign Language Speakers, is the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector. It is vitally important that representatives for the above languages be included as it forms part of the industries requirements to develop these BPO’s further within the Republic.
Impact of foreign language specialists in South Africa
The inclusion of Foreign Language Speakers in the new Critical Skills List has ensured Call Centres within the region, that serve European, Middle Eastern and Asian workers, are able to continue doing so. The South African Call Centre and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) markets have emerged as a leading global employment destination for bilingual foreigner’s seeking employment.
Foreign Language Speakers are essential to cementing strong business relationships in markets abroad, where they not only communicate information fluently but bring with them the international experience and an understanding of the unique traits and expectations of the global target market.
Organisations outsourcing their foreign market support function to Call Centre Operators, typically insist that high quality foreign language consultants be available to their customers, hence the inclusion of these languages as the most essential languages.
South Africa has become a hub for inbound and outbound Call Centres, whereby it contributes approximately R53bn annually to the GDP and has been voted the second most attractive Business Process Outsourcing location globally. Strong operational and service capabilities in the sector are among the reasons that we see the inclusion of Foreign Language Speakers on the newly published list and this sector can build on its reputation and position itself for further growth.
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