Good news for engineering jobs in South Africa
CareerJunction’s latest Employment Insights Report has revealed an increase in the hiring of engineers in South Africa over the past three months.
The recruitment platform said although overall hiring activity across all industries decreased by 4% between September and October 2022, it was still 9% higher than a year ago.
CareerJunction measured a 17% increase in online hiring activity for civil, mechanical, and structural engineers, as well as other architecture and engineering jobs.
This was coupled with a 19% increase in recruitment in the building and construction industries, which includes jobs for electricians, quantity surveyors, and consulting engineers.
The report comes after Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) published the country’s jobs statistics for the third quarter of 2022, revealing a slight decline in the overall unemployment rate.
Bloomberg reported that this means South Africa had improved from the worst in the world, to the third worst.
Stats SA said that manufacturing, trade, and construction were among the biggest contributors to job increases, despite crippling load-shedding.
These industries tend to have many engineers and technical personnel in their employment.
On the other side of the coin, CareerJunction found that the legal and warehousing & logistics sectors had seen decreased hiring activity of 15% and 10%, respectively.
The infographics below show the three sectors with the highest hiring activity increases and decreases in South Africa in the past three months, according to CareerJunction data.
For this report, CareerJunction also looked at which job sectors’ candidates were most willing to relocate for a position.
It found only 41% of telecommunications professionals were willing to do so, the least of any sector.
Finance and personal appearance professionals were also very reluctant, with only 44% and 47% willing to move for a job, respectively.
Conversely, 60% of cleaning, maintenance, and repair workers were willing to move for a job.
58% of medical and health professionals and 56% of architecture and engineering professionals were also willing to relocate to get hired.
CareerJunction also found differences in willingness to relocate based on qualification level and age.
Less-qualified people tended to be more open to relocating than those with higher qualifications, while the same could be said for younger candidates versus older candidates.
The infographics below illustrate the sectors, age groups, and qualification levels most and least likely to relocate for a new job.
Loading ...