Skills Development in Very Small and Micro Enterprises

Enterprises employing ten or less workers - very small and micro enterprises (VSMEs) - can potentially make important contributions to meeting South Africa's targets for reducing poverty and unemployment and increasing broad-based economic empowerment. One of the barriers that many such enterprises face is in the area of skills development. The apartheid legacy and the continued limited responsiveness of training providers have made access to formal skills acquisition difficult for these enterprises and their workers. Nonetheless, in this volume, which draws together two studies for the Department of Labour, a picture of the dynamism of many such firms emerges. Considerable learning is going on amongst the highly diverse VSME population and the challenge for the state lies in how to support what is already going on: how to spread it, and how to avoid over-interference in enterprises whose success has typically been irrespective of, or in spite of external interventions.