South African employers report a year-on-year increase of 40 percent in hiring sentiment.
South African companies foresee hiring growth across nine of the eleven sectors in the quarter from April to June this year compared to the first quarter of the year.
This is according to the 60th annual edition of the ManpowerGroup Employment Outlook Survey, which has found that organisations in the country are planning for a significantly healthy staffing climate in the coming quarter, with plans for a +32 percentage point Net Employment Outlook (This figure is derived by taking the percentage of employers anticipating total employment to increase and subtracting from this the percentage expecting to see a decrease in employment at their location in the next quarter), reported by hiring managers.
This is a 40 percent increase compared to the same period last year.
The survey also revealed that year on year, South Africa has experienced the highest growth in confidence rating with 40 percentage points.
Lyndy van den Barselaar, managing director at ManpowerGroup SA said, “These results reflect the rise in business confidence following the easing of lockdown restrictions that allowed for industries such as retail and hospitality to reopen on the back of the removal of the Covid-19 global travel ban. While the pandemic is not behind us yet, it is positive to see how organisations are adapting and preparing for business as usual by increasing staff count, particularly within certain sectors”.
According to the survey, the sector expected to see the highest hiring growth is primary production, which includes agriculture, forestry, and fishing; mining and quarrying; electricity, gas, and air conditioning supply; water supply; sewerage, waste management, and remediation activities.
This sector is expected to grow by 47 percent, followed by banking, finance, insurance, and real estate which expects to see an increase of 40 percent in hiring sentiment.
The manufacturing sector expects to see the lowest hiring growth with employers reporting a net outlook of twenty-seven.
The survey noted that employers in organisations with ten to 49 employees expected a relatively strong hiring pace.
Employers in small companies also expect hiring plans to grow by thirteen points quarter-on-quarter and improve 46 points year-on-year.
Meanwhile, hiring managers in medium businesses expect the lowest-performing staffing environment.
