Employers ‘buy back’ staff as skills shortage intensifies

It seems that it’s recently been “buy-back” time for vital employees in the shipping industry and its associated sectors in the freight chain, according to Lee Botti, MD of Lee Botti & Associates (LBA) – specialists in freight industry staff recruitment. “It’s exacerbated by people leaving the country, but can mainly be attributed to the serious shortage of skilled staff in SA,” she told FTW. “People have been negotiating new, better-paid jobs, and the employers have been buying them back. “Employers feel that it’s better to fill the desk with the same staff member rather than employ a newcomer who may need extra training to properly enable them to handle the task, and who would need time to familiarise themselves with company policy.” While a lot of this buy-back routine has been going on recently, Botti also feels that the market is about to change. “With international financial markets going the way they are, individual employees are being stretched, and looking for more money,” she said. “But companies are also under pressure, and looking at cost-saving and belttightening practices.” Examining indicators of salary levels in the remuneration survey in the clearing and forwarding industry released in September 2007 by P-E Corporate Services (PECS) and LBA, Botti pointed out that year-on-year increases in basic salary averaged 8.4% in the two years from August 2005 to July 2007 – almost one percentage point higher than all sector rates.” Although PECS is not due to release another specialised salary survey of the c&f industry until next August, principal remuneration consultant Adele Slotar told FTW that its 2008 September general staff salary survey (valid July 2008) would be a fair barometer of the salary pressures in the industry. “In our survey of 700 companies in general industry and commerce,” she said, “it showed that across all categories of staff (August 2007-July 2008) increases in basic salary had been 9.6% – and total cost of employment 9.1%.” And, looking into her crystal ball, Slotar indicated that the overall average projection for the next 12 months was likely to remain between 9 and 10% – with executive increases going even higher.