Johannesburg - The number of executives leaving South Africa in 2005/06 rose despite higher pay packages, underlining the country's struggle to retain a skilled labour force, a new study showed.
A national survey by consultancy firm Deloitte found that 39% of respondents in the marketing and sales sector had lost senior staff members between August 2005 and July this year, up from 24% the year before.
The results of the study were released to the media earlier this week.
The sector showing the second largest loss was manufacturing and production where some 16% of respondents said they had lost top executives. There was no figure for the previous year.
The latter area is of particular concern as it includes highly skilled professionals like engineers who are vital to a multi-billion rand government plan to upgrade infrastructure, especially ahead of the 2010 Soccer World Cup.
Eleven percent of those in the financial services sector - one of the biggest contributors to gross domestic product - reported a loss of high-level managers.
"We are certainly seeing the effects of a skills shortage in the executive market," said Louise Marx, manager for Human Capital at the local unit of Deloitte.
South Africa has highlighted a skills gap as one of the main threats to much-needed economic growth as it seeks to create jobs and ease widespread poverty.
Africa's biggest economy grew by 4.9% in 2005, its fastest pace in more than two decades. But the government wants to boost that to 6% in four years.
Such is the urgency of the skills crisis in South Africa that officials have said the government may need to re-enlist experienced whites who lost their jobs due to affirmative action policies aimed at promoting black economic empowerment.
"Nothing short of a skills revolution by a nation united will extricate us from the crisis we face...the most fatal constraint to shared growth is skills," Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said at the launch of a labour drive.
Salaries rise
The report, which polled over 400 firms, said the main reason for the exodus was better jobs abroad and that the trend came despite a healthy increase in salaries for this group.
Main destinations were Britain, Australia, European countries, and New Zealand.
Overall executive salary increases for 2005/06 were double the average inflation rate for the period August 2005 to July 2006,
Deloitte said.
A Deloitte survey published in April showed that for other staff salary increases were one and a half times the average inflation rate.
This points to another hotly debated issue in South Africa at the moment and potential source of future tension - a widening income gap.
"The intention was probably to stay close to the inflation rate and general staff increases, but market forces dictated that premiums were required to attract and retain top talent," Marx said.