Job market buoyant – for now

Now is the time to join the
freight industry in South
Africa, especially in the
light of ongoing growth
and expansion plans of
national and international
concerns, according to Morne
Steffens, senior manager
at Communicate Personnel
freight division.
“There are most definitely
more positions available than
can be handled by recruiters
at present,” he told FTW.
“As a national recruitment
agent with six strategically
placed hubs, the freight
division averages 22% of the
job orders brought into the
business, indicating the high
volume of roles available. The
market has definitely regained
momentum from a recruitment
perspective, although whether
that will continue remains
to be seen as uncertainty is
on the increase as a result of
global market instability,” he
said.
There is however a serious
skills shortage in the industry
and this remains a continuous
battle in both South Africa
and internationally within
specialist industries.
The freight industry has
a lack of training facilities
throughout the country, which
compounds this skills shortage
issue. Furthermore, Steffens
comments: “The IT and
finance niches constantly host
job fairs which create industry
awareness. Unfortunately this
is not the case in the freight
sector. We are also challenged
by the red tape within the
department of labour when
we find a foreign national
with exceptional skills. A
tremendous amount of time
and effort is required to
arrange for the approval of a
work permit. The time spent
on this process is often not
feasible.”
Communicate Personnel’s
freight division specialises in
both sales and operations in
the clearing and forwarding,
courier, road freight and supply
chain industries. Placing sales
executives in these industries
accounts for around 60% of its
placements with the remaining
40% being placements on the
operations side.
“There is a huge shortage
of sales executives with a
solid, proven track record,
and as the industry has so
many competitors it is very
cut-throat. This results in an
environment where individuals
move from company to
company chasing better
commission structures and
better salaries,” said Steffens.
“This in turn has a negative
effect on the marketability
of these candidates as they
eventually become branded
as “job-hoppers” and they
price themselves out of the
market. They reach a ceiling
in their earning capacity
and cannot get re-hired due
to their unrealistic salary
expectations and poor tenure
at one company. There
are unfortunately only a
handful of companies in the
industry that offer decent
commission structures. We
try to help candidates to find
an opportunity where they
can get a balance of good
commission, fair remuneration
and realistic targets.”
In order to manage
this skills shortage issue
Communicate Personnel is
constantly advertising through
various social media and
traditional job portals to entice
skills back into South Africa.
“An encouraging result of this
is that we are getting many
more inquiries from ex South
Africans wanting to relocate
back to SA.” says Steffens.
In addition Steffens is
very pleased that the lack of
training facilities is being
address by the state’s approval
of maritime school plans in
South Africa’s in six port cities
by 2013.
The South African
Maritime Authority’s CEO,
Tsietsi Mokhele, said that
SA’s education system had to
include maritime studies to fill
the skills gap. The maritime
sector is being ignored as a
career choice due to a lack of
information of the exciting
career paths that can be
followed within the industry.
“There is also not enough
opportunity for coastal region
students to physically attend
institutions to get degrees,
other than by correspondence.
Not even recognised maritime
institutions offer degrees, only
diplomas,” said Steffens.
Established in 1981
Communicate Personnel
provides national, specialist
recruitment in the industries of
freight/supply chain as well as
finance, IT and engineering.
The freight/ supply chain
division has offices in Durban,
Johannesburg and Cape Town.