‘Skilled staff with realistic salary expectations a rare find'

The freight and supply chain divisions of Communicate Personnel have handled a huge number of job vacancies in the clearing and forwarding, road freight and courier industries in both operations and sales, but there has been a “tremendous decline” in ship’s agency/shipping line positions, says Morne Steffens, general manager at Communicate Personnel. He adds that while the small- to medium-sized companies have been quiet on the job front, the outlook from the bigger players remains positive despite challenges such as everincreasing fuel prices and escalating charges. “There has, however been huge demand for skills from Africa, which I’m sure will impact us going forward.” One of the greatest challenges in the sector is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find good clearing and forwarding sales executives with solid, proven and stable track records, coupled with realistic salary expectations, according to Steffens. He says some of the global companies have started offering opportunities for graduates to move into sales jobs in the clearing and forwarding sector. “Communicate Personnel, as part of the Advtech group, has an education division that owns educational institutions from which we are able to draw the top achieving graduates interested in these exciting opportunities.” The skills shortage can potentially be addressed by numerous South African applicants that are returning from Europe and the United Kingdom, wanting to return home because of the economic fall-out there, adds Steffens. “We have unfortunately not been able to assist all of them, although they do have good skills, but the fact that they are often not familiar with the changing SA Customs and Excise laws, or their lack of geographical knowledge and lack of existing clients from a sales perspective, does hamper their chances in certain instances.” CAPTION Morne Steffens … positive outlook for bigger players.