South African organisations are planning for a significantly healthy staffing climate in the second quarter, with plans for a 32 percentage point increase in the net employment outlook (NEO) by hiring managers, workforce solutions multinational ManpowerGroup's latest 'Employment Outlook Survey' shows.

This is a 40 percentage point increase compared with the same period last year, the multinational reports.

“These results reflect the rise in business confidence following from the easing of lockdown restrictions that allowed for industries such as retail and hospitality to reopen.

“While the pandemic is not behind us yet, it is positive to see how organisations are adapting and preparing for business as usual by increasing staff count, particularly within certain sectors,” says ManpowerGroup South Africa MD Lyndy van den Barselaar.

South African organisations anticipate hiring growth across nine of the 11 sectors in the quarter from April to June 2022 compared with the first quarter of the year.

At the same time, employers expect the NEO to remain constant for one of 11 sectors compared with the first quarter, but expect growth to occur in all sectors compared with the second quarter of 2021.

The sector expected to see the highest hiring growth is primary production, which includes agriculture, forestry and fishing; mining and quarrying; electricity, gas and air conditioning supply; water supply; sewerage, waste management and remediation activities.

This primary production sector is expected to grow by 47%, followed by banking, finance, insurance and real estate, which expects to see an increase of 40% in hiring sentiment.

Further, the manufacturing sector expects to see the lowest hiring growth with employers reporting a net outlook of 27. In this sector, job hunters can expect the NEO to grow by 8% compared with the first quarter of 2022 and by 36 percentage points compared with the second quarter of 2021.

Meanwhile, small businesses of between 10 and 49 employees, with a NEO of 36, expect a relatively strong hiring pace. In these types of organisations, employers expect hiring plans to grow by 13 percentage points quarter-on-quarter and by 46 percentage points year-on-year, ManpowerGroup says.

“Equally, hiring managers at organisations with more than 250 employees are planning for a net employment outlook of 36. Compared with the last quarter, workers in these types of organisations can expect the NEO to improve by five percentage points and grow by 33 percentage points compared with the second quarter of 2021

“Meanwhile, with a NEO of 29, hiring managers in organisations with 50 to 249 employees expect the lowest-performing staffing environment,” the company said.

Hiring climate improvements are expected by hiring decision-makers for all South African regions during the second quarter of 2022. South African job hunters can plan for the NEO to improve for four of five regions compared with the last quarter.

The region expecting the best-performing hiring pace, with a NEO of 39, is the Free State region, a 52-point growth when compared to the same period last year. This is followed by the Western Cape which, with a NEO of 34, is an increase of eight points compared to last quarter.

Hiring managers in the Eastern Cape report the lowest-performing growth with a net employment outlook of 26. However, the job market is expected to improve by 5 percentage points in this region when compared to the first quarter of this year and by 35 percentage points compared with the same period last year.