Revisiting Learnership Agreements

In 2002 the learnership agreement started because there weren’t enough skilled workers and lots of people did not have jobs. But now, after 22 years, this agreement is about to end on 1 April 2024. This makes us wonder: Has the learnership agreement completed its tasks?

Even after all this time, South Africa still has big problems with not enough skilled workers and too many people without jobs. Experts say that it could take 50 years to fix these problems, so 22 years isn’t enough time to solve everything.

Most of the people who don’t have jobs in South Africa are in lower-paying jobs. To help fix this, the government gives employers tax breaks, if they help train workers through learnership programs. These programmes teach people important job skills.

So, SAIPA isn’t shocked that the deadline for finalizing agreements has been extended by another three years to April 2027.

The extension of the deadline is driven by the needs of the labour market and economic conditions. suggestions that these amendments are politically motivated with the upcoming elections are a bit far-fetched.

Further evidence that the amendments are not politically motivated  is the fact that the learnership programme were initiated in 2002, and the deadlines have been extended multiple times since then.

Mahomed Kamdar (SAIPA)

Tax Specialist