The bottom has fallen out of the freight industry job market. According to two of the country’s leading freight recruitment specialists, the market has done a complete reversal on last year – when a skills shortage was providing the tears – to an oversupply of candidates looking for toofew available jobs. In a snap survey of her national records, Kim Botti, director of Lee Botti & Associates, noted that there had been an increase in redundancies within the industry in just the past couple of weeks. “Initially,” she told FTW, “companies spent the first two months of the year waiting to see what would happen. But they have now taken action with retrenchments. Some companies are cutting salaries by as much as 20% in order to avoid retrenching staff while others are working “short-time” or a four-day week.” Dr Lynn Ribton-Turner, head of Ribton-Turner Recruitment, noted the same turnaround timing. “Go back to last September,” she said, “when the turbulence in world markets eventually filtered down to the freight industry, and shipping lines watched volumes dropping dramatically – particularly the SA exports. “Freight forwarders were still buoyed by orders being processed in their systems, and this ran through into the New Year. So January was a wait-and-see month.” But in the meantime, global freight forwarding organisations placed an embargo on recruitment worldwide – except, for critical positions. This has been met in SA with a massive drop in job vacancies, she added, in what is normally the peak season for employment. “But few positions are available this year,” she said. Botti’s figure check agreed. “Nationally,” she said, “we have had a number of unemployed candidates register with us – and there certainly is an abundance of candidates in relation to the number of positions available. This is the complete opposite of last year and the massive skills shortage experienced.” It has also seen some hesitancy amongst freight industry staff to think of a move in this lean period. Said Botti: “Employed candidates are hesitant to move. Should they join a company that may later retrench, they could be hit with the Lifo principle (lastin, first-out). “We have also learned that some companies have advised their staff no increases or bonuses will be considered this year due to the economic downturn.” But there’s possible light on the horizon, according to Ribton-Turner. “A brighter note,” she told FTW, “is that shipping has reported that they are picking up cargoes again, and forwarders that they have indents flowing through their systems – an indicator of increasing volumes to come.” As yet unclear, she added, is whether this is a bubble, or not. Both recruitment specialists noted that sales staff were still in demand – which, Botti said, “reflects companies’ needs to increase their business and volumes”.
