The latest Pnet Job Market Trends Report for the second quarter of 2023 shows job hirings are up 3% on the previous year. Since Covid, the number of jobs advertised has shot up 27%.

More than half of these are in the SME sector, corroborating an International Finance Corporation report that 50-60% of South Africa’s workforce finds employment within small and medium-sized companies.

The Pnet report shows that the top three skills in demand by SMEs are sales representatives, financial accountants, and software developers.

“The biggest demand for skills is in the SME sector because that is where the growth is, and that trend is likely to continue,” says Ilana Bouwer, head of sales at Pnet.

Pnet is the country’s largest online recruitment database, with six million jobseekers currently on its books.

This gives it a satellite view of developments in the national job market.

The company was established in 1997 and was bought by The Stepstone Group, based in Germany, in 2013. Stepstone has offices in 20 countries, which gives it unprecedented insight into global recruitment trends.

Its massive database of candidates and market trends gives Pnet the ability to offer clients deep-level insights with sophisticated job-matching technology and filtering tools.

Pnet’s business model differs from traditional recruitment agencies in that it does not charge placement fees (which can be 15-20% of a candidate’s first-year salary), and that reduces average placement costs by about 60%.

Looking at the SA job market, Pnet’s latest trends report shows that job candidates in IT and manufacturing stay in their positions for three years and two months on average.

The fact that jobs advertised increased 5% in the second quarter over the first three months of the year suggests the economy may be doing better in 2023 than many suspect.

Most of the jobs advertised are in the SME sector, which range in size from one to 300 staff.

“Some people feel more comfortable in a smaller business than a large corporate for a variety of reasons,” says Bouwer.

“For one thing, you have a faster climb to the top, you can acquire skills quicker, and you get exposed to more aspects of the business. You’re more likely to get noticed in an SME than if you are working in a large corporation.

“For SMEs, finding the right talent can help them grow exponentially, and many smaller companies are willing to pay well for the right people.”

Increasingly, SMEs are competing head-to-head with large companies for the same talent. Some are prepared to pay above market rates to win that talent, with additional benefits such as a chance to gain broader business experience.

Employees in large corporations tend to be locked in divisional silos with limited exposure to what happens in other parts of the business.

Pnet researched the recruitment needs of SMEs over the last 12 months, looking for the most in-demand skills in this market segment. The findings show that the most wanted skills are business and management, finance, sales, admin, office and support and IT.

Sales skills are in particular demand among SMEs, with one study showing that poor marketing skills often cause business failure.

An American study suggests small businesses have trouble closing sales deals. “This is usually due to a lack of sales skills, resources, and experience. Small businesses often lack the resources to provide comprehensive sales training to their employees. This can result in sales teams that are ill-equipped to handle various sales scenarios, leading to fewer closed deals,” the study says.

The best-paid jobs are for solutions architects and data engineers in the IT sector, where they can earn between R48 496 and R67 901 a month, and supply chain managers in the manufacturing and assembly sector, where monthly salaries range from R55 493 to R71 266.

European research suggests SMEs lack software development skills, with about one-third of SMEs reporting insufficient skills in complex data analyses and mathematics.

The World Bank Group estimates that 600 million SMEs will be needed by 2030 to absorb the growing global workforce, which makes SME development a high priority for many governments. In emerging markets, most formal jobs are generated by SMEs, which create seven out of 10 jobs.

“The growth of the SME sector is not a new trend, but one trend we are noticing is that highly skilled people are more inclined than in times past to look for employment in smaller companies where [there is] much faster career mobility,” says Bouwer.

Brought to you by Pnet.

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