By Anton Ferreira
Interest rates, fuel prices, power cuts — South Africa’s litany of woes is changing the face of the job market.
Research by recruitment agency DMA People shows how enforced belt-tightening has slashed, in percentage terms, the number of mining, construction and engineering jobs advertised in Business Times Careers.
Ross Mengel, managing director of DMA People, said these industries accounted for 24% of job adverts in the first quarter of the year, sharply down on 30% in the previous quarter and 39% in the first quarter of 2007.
“I think a lot of this does have to do with the various economic indicators that have had an effect on a number of industries over the last 12 months,” he said.
“Load-shedding caused havoc for the mines and might have reduced their demand for skills.”
In terms of vacancies, the number of jobs advertised in the industry rose slightly to 5332 from 4796 in the previous quarter. However, the fourth quarter is always slow, Mengel noted.
The number of jobs advertised in manufacturing also took a knock — the sector accounted for just 5% of the jobs listed in the first quarter, as opposed to an average of 8% for the whole of last year.
“We have seen a steady decline in demand for skills in manufacturing, largely due to shrinking disposable income,” Mengel said.
“Fuel prices and much higher interest rates continue to put pressure on the consumer. It’s kind of the same we’ve been seeing over the last six months, but more so.”
A similar picture was painted by Investec’s purchasing managers’ index (PMI), which dropped to 43.7 points in March, its lowest level since June 2003.
But things looked a lot brighter in the first quarter for IT/telecoms job seekers — the number of vacancies advertised soared to 34% of the total, compared with 25% in the previous quarter.
“(IT hiring) was pretty level until the first quarter of 2007, and since then it’s been increasing quite dramatically,” Mengel said.
“Particularly in the banking sector it seems a number of companies feel they’ve been neglecting IT infrastructure . .. for some time now.
“There was a bit of a drop in demand for skills post-Y2K but now it seems people are looking towards their IT infrastructure again to gain some form of competitive advantage.”
Anton Heydenrych, an IT sector researcher at Africa Analysis, said the shortage of IT skills was hampering new projects.
“Almost every study we do, we ask what the inhibitors are for this new service or new technology to grow. Skills are almost always one of the factors,” he said.
“Almost everybody I talk to in the sector complains about not being able to get skills. That’s particularly true in newer areas — the type of services that are at the start of their life-cycle, where we haven’t been able to skill up.”
Heydenrych said there was no quick end in sight to the shortage.
“I don’t think there’s a short-term solution. It takes time to get people up to speed, especially if it’s a new technology, a complex thing that cuts across the whole IT infrastructure of a company.”
New graduates might have the technical skills, but they lack business experience.
“That’s where one of the shortages lies: people with sufficient business and technical skills. You can do a quick course in the technology, but you can’t do a quick course in business. The one-month MBA won’t work,” Heydenrych explained.
Mengel said Gauteng had slipped slightly in a regional analysis of private sector job offers, but still dominated with 57% of posts.
The Western Cape was down to 11% from 14%, but KwaZulu-Natal grew to 9% from 8%.
