Work Permit for South Africa

t1mm

Hi there,

Does anybody know what the process is for obtaining a work permit in South Africa, or have any links I could follow? I'm in SA at the moment on holiday and I'd like to find a job in the tech industry and stay around for another while.

Thanks in advance!

trasver

Hi there

I'm currently living and working here and have recently got permanent residency.

Unfortunately permits can be quite hard to come by unless your skills have been identified as scarce skills. The department of home affairs website has most of the information you'll need:

http://www.home-affairs.gov.za/index.php/scarce-skills-work-quotas

Unfortunately it says you can't apply while here on holiday so you'll need to leave and apply from outside.....probably not a bad thing as getting a permit via Dublin is a lot easier/quicker than from within SA.

Feel free to reply/PM with any other questions

Simon

t1mm

Hi Simon,

Thanks a million for your reply. I have a third level degree in Computer Science / Business - do you think that would qualify as a scarce skill? I've just found the page below which is quite helpful:

http://www.capetownmagazine.com/whats-the-deal-with/how-to-apply-for-a-work-permit-in-south-africa/125_22_19023

For the General Work Permit, do you think I would need to leave the country there also?

trasver

Hi there

I'm not sure to be honest...there's a quota list published every year and if you're on it then it should be a formality. I don't really know about having to leave the country etc. I entered on an exceptional skills visa and all that was done in Ireland.

t1mm

Thanks again for your reply Simon.

Might I ask what your qualifications generally have to be to obtain an exceptional skills visa?

Cheers

trasver

As the immigration guy said to me "Exceptional skills is the porche of visas"!!

Unfortunately they're quite rare as far as I know. I'm a university prof who work with HIV and uses bioinformatics (a recognised scarce skill) in my work so I ticked a lot of boxes.

I had to provide all of my publications, testaments from the various universities I've worked in along with tonnes of other documents proving my exceptional skills....a real pain to get all the docs together but it was worth it.

AerynSun

Any HIV related scarce skill is definitely going to get you the "Porsche of visas". Unfortunately, I very much doubt that IT/Business is going to make it onto the scarce skills list - South Africa has some of the best IT/Business skills in the world

Magic Pips

t1mm wrote: »

Thanks again for your reply Simon.

Might I ask what your qualifications generally have to be to obtain an exceptional skills visa?

Cheers

http://www.steppingsouth.com/

These are the folks i got my visa through. Although mine was intercompany (irish company > SA company). Might be worth talking to someone like them