South African eyes skilled workers in new digital nomad visa

South Africa is looking for submissions from citizens to help streamline its new digital nomad visa ahead of official introduction as it seeks to attract skilled workers into the country.

This follows the release, by the Department of Home Affairs, the draft second amendment of the Immigration Regulations, dealing with two key categories of visas – the remote working and critical skills visa, and ancillary matters for public comment.

This comes after extensive lobbying by the Western Cape Government since 2021 for the introduction of a digital nomad visa and reforms to the visa regime to enable South Africa to attract skilled individuals to South Africa, to help develop and grow the economy.

“To boost tourism, facilitate foreign investment, and allow digital nomads to work in South Africa, while spending their earnings here, we need to make it as easy as possible for them to access South Africa,” said Minister Wenger.

“At the same time, it is essential that South Africa can attract and welcome skilled workers that will contribute to growing the complexity of our economy, facilitate new industries and thereby create new South African jobs” she continued.

“The longer it takes to implement necessary changes to the current disastrous visa regime in South Africa, the more opportunities we miss out on to grow the economy and create jobs. While I welcome the progress signalled by the call for comments by the Department of Home Affairs, time is really of the essence, ” said Provincial Minister of Finance and Economic Opportunities, Mireille Wenger.

“I strongly encourage all those who wish to see our economy grow and thrive, creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs, not just in the Western Cape, but across this incredible country, to review the draft second amendments and submit their comments to the Department of Home Affairs, by the deadline of 29 March 2024,” concluded Minister Wenger.

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