It is difficult to know the extent of any country’s skills shortage. The nature of modern economies – dynamic, flexible, entrepreneurial – makes this an impossible, probably wasteful task.

The best estimates of the scale of South Africa’s formal managerial and technical shortfall are in the 350,000 to 500,000 range, but these figures predate the unexpected upsurge in economic growth of recent years and are by now a significant underestimate.