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Johannesburg - The new year may bring new opportunities for many job-seekers as recruitment in some sectors picks up.
A new survey by Manpower shows the proportion of local employers who will increase their workforce in the first quarter of the new year is currently about twice that of three months ago.
About 22% of the 750 South African employers who participated expect to hire more workers in the first quarter of 2010 than in the last quarter of 2009.
According to Manpower, firms involved in agriculture - including the hunting, forestry and fishing industries - and electricity expect to do the most hiring.
PAG's Tsietsi Motlhaping said recruitment has also seen "a lot of growth" in telecommunications, the public sector and financial services.
Retailers have hired more workers, but it may only be a short-term phenomenon due to the festive season, he added.
While recruitment in engineering and mining has increased, Mindcor MD Neil Maslen said that financial sector hiring has been somewhat stronger.
Since the middle of the year, demand for senior positions like CEOs and chief financial officers has gone up, he added.
But Motlhaping says many companies are still choosing not to fill positions permanently.
"Companies don't want to commit themselves to permanent positions. They don't want to pay for all the expenses that come with a permanent staff member, especially an executive." A temporary appointment costs firms much less, said Motlhaping.
Maslen pointed out, however, that companies don't want acting boards for long periods of time. He said that where positions are not filled by permanent appointments, it is often because it takes time to find a suitable person, particularly if other stakeholders are involved in the decision-making.
"In the executive space... it's getting closer to the end of the tunnel."
Recruitment in IT and the oil and petroleum industries remains slow.
"The oil and petroleum industry has been very quiet. If they are hiring, it's specialised positions... unlike two or three years ago, where they would want five credit controllers. Now they are in a position to retrench," said Motlhaping.
- Fin24.com