Hiring activity has slowed down in South Africa, as more people struggle to find jobs.
This is according to data from the CareerJunction Employment Insights Q1:2024 report which offers an analysis of the supply and demand trends in the South African job market.
The report showed that year-on-year hiring activity dropped by 11% between Q1:2023 to Q1:2024. There was a 8.1% decrease in hiring activity between Q1:2022 to Q1:2024.
According to CareerJunction, slowing down of hiring activity evident in the South African recruitment market can be partly attributed to current economic uncertainty.
CareerJunction said that economic instability, locally or globally, can dampen business confidence and investment, leading companies to be cautious about expanding their workforce.
“Factors such as fluctuations in commodity prices, political instability, or changes in government policies can all contribute to economic uncertainty,” CareerJunction said.
Year-on-year, a number of job sectors saw a decline in hiring activity including:
– In the Admin, Office & Support job sector, hiring activity dropped by 9%
– Hiring activity for the Business & Management job sector decreased by 7%
– In the Finance job sector, hiring activity decreased by 9%
– The Information Technology job sector saw the biggest drop in hiring activity, at 26%.
Decline in hiring activity in the past three months
A comparison of hiring activity in January, February and March 2024 and October, November and December 2023, has shown that there has been a drop in hiring activity in three major job sectors: Information Technology, Business Management and Finance.
For the Information Technology sector, hiring activity decreased by 15%, while the Business Management and Finance saw hiring activity drop by 7% and 6%, respectively.
According to CareerJunction, no growth hiring activity was seen for any sector over the past three months.
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