South Africa faces shocking shortage of thousands of social workers
31 March 2022
Note to Editors: Please find an attached soundbite by Gizella Opperman MP.
The Department of Social Development (DSD) revealed, in answer to a question from the DA during deliberations on the Children's Amendment Bill (CAB), that South Africa has a shortage of at least 52 500 social workers. The country currently has 17 500 social workers who provide services, but we need 70 000 to implement the CAB alone.
In 2003, social work was already declared a scarce skill and critical profession by government. It was the insufficient number of magistrates and social workers to process applications that caused the backlog of processing foster grant applications in 2006.
It is unacceptable that while the current pool of suitably qualified social workers are insufficient to meet the demand in South Africa, more than 9 000 qualified social workers are unemployed due to due to funding constraints, lack of capacity and a lack of adequate tools of the trade within the DSD.