South Africa is Africa’s greatest economy. Close to 500,000 jobs in South Africa were created over a period of only one year and approximately one and a half million jobs over a period of five years.

The industry of trade alone accounts for twenty-four per cent of newly created jobs. There are, in this industry, more than three million jobs in South Africa. The service industry has employed about 2.3 million workers and this is 18% of new jobs whilst the manufacturing industry accounts for 13.6% of new jobs in South Africa, which adds up to 1.7 million workers. During the period of 2005 to 2006, unemployment curved in somewhat from 26.7% to 25.5%.

Job creation in this country has remained slow. It is not able to stay abreast of the rate of national growth. However, many companies have planned to allocate more budget funds for additional plants and machinery. An optimistic position is maintained as regards jobs in South Africa. This country has a profusion of semi-skilled and unskilled workers, leading to hostility about immigrants who fall under these categories of the job market. However, the skilled job hunters, who are scarce, are encouraged to move to the country, more so by the employers wanting to relocate and/or establish offices in this country.

Generally, this country has a scarcity of senior-level executive managers to work in its public sector. The rate of vacancy and jobs in South Africa ranges from department to department. For example, the Department of Foreign Affairs, Department of Provisional Housing, and Department of Health have the rates of 60%, 32%, and 8%, respectively.