[imagesource: Freepik]

Jobs are in short supply in South Africa, and even more so now that we’re dealing with a pandemic.

According to Stats SA, the unemployment rate stood at 32,5% in the October-December quarter, up from 30,8% in the previous three months, which is the highest it’s been since 2008.

This means that unless you already have a foot in the door, finding a new job (or your first job) can be tough.

That’s why it’s best to arm yourself with the knowledge you need to prepare for what’s out there so that you can brush up on, or add to, your skillset.

Career Junction recently published its up-to-date jobs index, with some interesting insight into which skills are most in-demand in the country right now.

The Career Junction index looks at labour dynamics across South Africa based on data collected from the Career Junction website.

An overview of vacancy levels in the graph below is an indication of the sectors where most jobs are currently available:

Image: CareerJunction

The research shows that the following skills are the most sought-after on the job market across sectors:

• Software development: Demand for software development skills in-creased by 22% from January to February 2021. Professionals within software development remain highly demanded in the local job market.
• Middle/department management: Managerial skills in combination with managerial expertise are highly sought after. Particularly middle and department managers are on the forefront of labour demand.
• Representative/sales consulting: Hiring activity for sales consultants has been slowly increasing since December 2020. Despite a volatile demand trend, job advertising for sales consultants has increased by 19% over the last six months.

If we look at what active job seekers are looking for (evident in the supply graph below), areas of high employment, for the most part, correspond with areas of high demand from job seekers.

Image: CareerJunction

Unfortunately, the number of people looking for jobs is higher than the jobs available, which means that the job market is incredibly competitive right now.

You can read the rest of the CareerJunction report here.

Alternately, BusinessTech put a comprehensive summary together, which breaks things down in more detail.

If you’re on the hunt, we wish you nothing but the best.

[source:careerjunction]