How new skills report empowers private sector

MBABANE – The private sector in Eswatini has long wrestled with the widening disconnect between the skills produced by higher education institutions and the rapidly evolving needs of the job market.

For many years, companies have been compelled to act as training centres, investing heavily in in-house upskilling programmes simply to make new recruits job-ready — a costly necessity that has underscored the country’s structural skills gap.

Against this backdrop, Business Eswatini (BE) has welcomed the release of the National Skills Anticipation Report 2025–2034, developed by the Eswatini Higher Education Council (ESHEC), as a ‘vital strategic tool’ that can finally bridge the divide between education and employment.

The report, launched in early October 2025, presents a data-driven roadmap to forecast Eswatini’s future labour market needs.

It identifies critical shortages, emerging opportunities and the competencies that will shape key economic sectors over the next decade — giving the private sector a powerful planning instrument to drive investment, innovation and workforce alignment.

With youth unemployment standing at 48.7 per cent and Eswatini ranking among the countries with the highest skills mismatch globally, the timing of the report could not be more critical.

“This report goes beyond identifying today’s problems. It anticipates tomorrow’s skills needs and gives both industry and academia the tools to plan strategically,” said a Business Eswatini representative in a statement.

For business leaders, the report represents a shift from reactive hiring to proactive human capital planning. It provides concrete insights that allow companies to:

• Make evidence-based decisions about expansion and investment.
• Collaborate with training institutions to develop relevant curricula.
• Reduce the high costs of remedial in-house training.

“The data gives us the confidence to plan long term, rather than navigate in the dark,” BE noted, adding that this approach could significantly reduce unemployment and improve productivity.

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