Writing in the official journal of the South African Institute of Measurement and Control (SAIMC), editor Andrew Ashton says that South Africa's plan to allow skilled migrants to come to the country to find work without a job offer is unattractive compared to the European Union's proposed blue card immigration scheme.

"We know that there are problems relating to the education, development and training for engineers in South Africa, and various companies and organizations are addressing these issues in different ways," Ashton wrote.

"At the same time South Africa's skills base is being eroded through emigration and the lure of well-paying contract work outside the country's borders."

He touched on the European Union's plan to allow skilled migrants to come to the 27-member bloc to live and work as long as they had the requisite criteria.

"One of the attractions of the plan is that [the blue card] offers automatic permanent residency after five years," he wrote.

He then went on to detail South Africa's plan to introduce a new work permit to attract skilled workers.

"Foreign nationals with this permit are allowed to immigrate to South Africa without having a job. They then have 90 days in which to find work in their field of expertise," he wrote.

"In the context of a global market the South African demand (offer) does not appear sufficiently attractive vs its EU counterpart," he stated.

While the EU blue card requirement of a job offer could prove difficult for some prospective migrants, the 90-day grace period for the South African work permit is fairly strict. For example, New Zealand's skilled migration scheme grants a migrant nine months to find employment.

The SAIMC represents practicing mechanicians, technicians, technologists, engineers and scientists working in the South African field of industrial measurement and control technologies.