Saturday 7 July 2018

Read This - #IT and #financial skills are in demand in SA

So you are probably jobless and wondering which sectors of economy are hiring, right?

Well don't despair - just read on and you might just get that lucrative job.

According to a new study published by Adzuna, IT and financial skills are in great demand. Hmmmm

Adzuna analysed over 140 000 online jobs to find out which skills were sought after, as well as how many job-seekers were searching for those jobs.

The online job aggregator carried out the same research in September last year to establish what has changed since they conducted this research. The job aggregator says this research is not definitive, but gives a very clear impression of the state of skills in South Africa today.

A job advert for a civil engineer shows demand for civil engineering skills, while a job seeker search for "civil engineer jobs" depicts a supply of that skill. Combining these numbers gives a "rareness factor". The higher the number, the rarer the skill, with more demand than supply. Topping the rankings for this year thus far are technology (programmers, IT) and financial skills.

What is surprising is the relative drop in rarity of engineering skills. "Either engineers are more abundant, which is doubtful, or for some reason, less engineering skills are being advertised for," says Jesse Green, Country Manager for Adzuna South Africa. "The average salaries have remained high, though, for engineers."

Developers and accountants are in high demand and few of them are searching for jobs as of May 2018. Accounting skills, in particular, have seen increases in rarity of over 100%.

Civil engineers, in particular, have come in at over R628 000 on average, almost unchanged since September 2017, with only a 3% increase since then, mostly matching inflation.

While the rarity of skills may have changed, salaries are overall much more stable. Only sales managers have seen a correlation in rarity and salary increase. Sales management skills are 123% rarer and have seen a 12% average salary increase over the past eight months.

The research allows graduates and scholars to do well to see whether their intended line of study is going to be in demand and bring them a well-paid future.

Companies, on the other hand, need to find innovative ways to recruit candidates in scarce-skill positions.