Bad news for IT jobs in South Africa

Hiring activity in the information technology (IT) sector has declined by 14% over the past three months, according to CareerJunction’s March 2023 Employment Insights report. CareerJunction noted that recruitment activity over the past month has increased by 8%, partly due to increased demand in the IT sector. However, being very recent, these increases in hiring activity aren’t reflected in its three-month analysis. The company’s Employment Insight report provides an overview of the supply and demand trends in South Africa’s online job market. “Over the past month, recruitment activity has increased by 8%,” it said. “This increase has been driven by growth in demand for Business & Management, Information Technology, Finance as well as Admin, Office & Support staff during the month of February 2023.” Looking at the three-month analysis, the IT and Admin, Office & Support sectors have seen the most significant decline in hiring activity — 14% and 17%, respectively. CareerJunction highlighted specific IT skills that saw significant recruitment declines:

• Business analysis
• Data analysis / data warehousing
• Database design / development / administration
• Software development

CareerJunction also analyses other South African job market aspects, including recruitment per location and gender-based employment trends. It noted that business analysis jobs in the IT sector are one of the most gender-balanced roles in the South African job market. “The most gender-balanced roles in South Africa are for professions like Business Analysis, Trade Broking, Risk Management, Representative / Sales Consulting and Commercial Law,” CareerJunction said. “These job roles appear to have the fairest distribution between males and females.” It found that males comprise 46% of business analysis roles, while females occupy 45%. The remaining 9% is unspecified. Regarding total hiring activity per province, Gauteng-based companies dominate recruitment in South Africa. The breakdown of hiring activity was as follows:

• Gauteng — 54%
• Western Cape — 21%
• KwaZulu-Natal — 10%
• Eastern Cape — 6%
• North West — 2%
• Free State — 1%
• Limpopo — 1%
• Mpumalanga — 1%
• Northern Cape — 1%
• International — 3%