What's up guys, Tino here. So, it's been a while since I've spoken about
visas on this channel there's a pretty good reason for that but
there were some big changes to the Critical Skills Visa and given that
one of my most popular videos is to do that with that visa, I figured I probably owe you guys an
update. So, let's talk a little bit about the visa first and then we'll dive into the changes.
So the Critical Skills Visa is a visa that was introduced a couple of years ago by the
government of South Africa to make it easier for foreign nationals with Critical Skills to come
into South Africa and fill in the gaps because there is a pretty serious skills gap in S.A.
Now, the normal visa is really hard to get, like for the normal work visa. Whichever company is
going to hire you under the normal work visa has to prove to the government of South Africa
that they couldn't find anyone else in the S.A with the skills that you have, which is kind of
hard in a country of like 50 million people. So you can imagine how amazing this visa is because
uh the burden to do that proving is not there anymore on the company. Anyways,
that's just some background, I've split up this video into four five-ish section. I'm gonna start
by talking about the skills that we added and then the skills that we removed. Then I'm gonna talk
about the three big changes that have been made and I'll finish off with some closing thoughts.
Okay. Skills Added. This is like the only good news I have actually.
So, 28 new skills were added. Most of these are STEM related skills. A lot of them are also senior
management positions so like Call Center Manager, CEO and also STEM subject teachers. So if you are
if you're a teacher in a STEM subject between grade 8 and grade 12, congratulations you are
now a Critical Skill in South Africa. That's all the good news I have. It's downhill from here.
So they added 28 skills, Awesome!
...but they removed 60 plus skills! Like, the list went from 160 down to like 100
which is really sad so if you are currently on a critical skills visa you need to take a look at
this list just to make sure you're still eligible, otherwise, you know things can get really awkward
Some notable removals include South African PhD so previously you could study towards a PhD,
any PhD in South Africa and you'd automatically qualify for Permanent Pesidency.
That's not a thing anymore so if you're currently studying towards a PhD with the
idea that you're gonna get Residency afterwards, you really need to start thinking of a Plan B.
Another shocker is everything "Health" related was removed. So doctors, specialist doctors,
pharmacists, nurses, vets... anything to do with the health sciences is removed,
except, there's only one exception. Nurse educator. So if you're a lecturer for nursing then
you're safe. Everyone else, including the nurses, is no longer a Critical Skill,
which is really unfortunate. I see a trend here like
there's definitely great need for teachers in South Africa because they've added teaching
positions and they've kept teaching positions and lecturing positions. I find that interesting.
Anyways, I'm not going to list everything. I'm going to leave a link to an article that
discusses this in a bit more detail... but um... yeah that's that's it for now.
Okay, now next update is NQF levels. Now NQF is how South Africa
measures education, your level of education. So you've got NQF level 10, which is the highest,
that's a PhD. Then you've got NQF level 9 which is a Master's degree.
So they've increased the NQF level that's required for like a lot of these roles.
So previously if you could qualify with an NQF level 7,
this might have been a bump to like an NQF level 8 and so on. So you need to take another look
at this because a lot of people study 3-year degrees, for example, um because you know it's
a three-year degree; and don't do honors and would qualify for a Critical Skill... but now
you might need to actually have an Honours Degree to qualify for a Critical Skill. I've
left a list with all these different skills so go check it out and see if you're still eligible.
So yeah, that's that's the NQF Level increase update. The next update is a very sad one
because ... it affects me, 3-years ago. Anyways that's the Permanent Residency waiver. Okay,
so first of all, the Critical Skills Visa requires five years of work experience. So
you need five years work experience on top of all the other requirements and you also need
to join a professional body in South Africa which can be a massive hassle because they
also have their own requirements. So this made it really hard for graduates from South Africa
to like ... like foreign graduates in South Africa to get jobs after graduation because you
obviously don't have all the experience. You wouldn't qualify for this visa.
So in 2016, the Minister the foreign... the Immigration Minister
created waivers. So basically, if you study towards the Critical Skill in South Africa,
you immediately qualify for Permanent Residency after you graduate which
will make it significantly easier to like look for jobs and stuff.
That's not a thing anymore.
Yeah, if you graduate from a South African university you
you now need five years to get a Critical Skills Visa.
uh yeah. This one is really sad because I used this waiver to get my Permanent Residency and
it's really unfortunate that... I actually have a lot of friends that were waiting... Like,
during the pandemic, they stopped Permanent Residency applications and then when they
started again, they first removed this waiver and then like... yeah it was really messed up.
So this one hits really hard because it ... I know
it affects a lot of people that I know so... Unfortunately, that's a thing.
Anyways moving on.
The next big change is the 1-year Critical Skills Visa. So previously, you didn't need a job,
like a job offer to get the Critical Skills Visa. You could apply for a Critical Skills Visa without
a job offer and they would give you a 1-year visa which you can then use to go job hunting.
Now that was very necessary because most companies in South Africa will not even look at your CV if
you don't have a work visa. There's lots of job hunting platforms that people use for job hunting
and they will ask you for a work visa if you're a foreigner and this critical this one year Critical
Skills Visa was a nice work around that because you could get this 1-year visa, come to S.A for
a year to do your job hunting, and once you get a job offer, you can then apply for the 5-year visa.
That's not a thing anymore. You now need a permanent job offer
to apply for this visa which is really hard because most companies won't even look at you.
Okay, so those are the major updates. As for who is affected by these updates;
well, if you currently hold a Critical Skills Visa,
or you currently have Permanent Residency based on the old rules then
you're not affected. Your visa will continue being valid until it expires and your Permanent
Residency is permanent, so if you want to like go for citizenship afterwards you can still do that.
Also, if you applied for Critical Skills Visa before these updates were announced;
so before February 2022, then they're going to evaluate your application using the old rules;
so that's still fine for those guys.
it's unfortunate that South Africa is making it harder, especially for younger people, to come
and work in South Africa. I can understand for a lot of Africans, S.A is one of the countries you
wanna... if you are leaving your home country, S.A is one of the best countries to move to because
it's got great job opportunities and it's still in Africa so, you don't have to leave Africa.
But there are other countries out there that have similar programs. There are other countries that
have Critical Skills Visas so don't just focus all your energies on S.A. Spread your wings,
look at other countries like Canada, European countries, and even Asian countries.
They also have similar programs and they might actually be easier sometimes.
I have a whole video that breaks down the Critical Skills Visa application process. The same applies
to the Permanent Residency application process so if you're interested in that,
most of what i said in that video still applies, i think... everything actually applies so yeah.
Cool.
Let me know if you have any questions down in the comments section.
Like the video for the YouTube Algo-go....
... and i'll see you guys in the next video.
Okay.
Have a good day.