Gumtree is advertising 10,000 jobs available to South Africans now

SA’s unemployment figure has officially surpassed the 30% mark, according to Trading Economics, with experts extremely pessimistic about the country’s short- and long-term economic growth prospects.

Economist Mike Schussler said unemployment could soar past 50% if economic contraction follows the dramatic trend experienced in the US.

“The last time we had this decline in the world economy [in 2008], SA lost 1.3-million jobs in 18 months. I believe we will lose more now; we already believe that this recession will have a much greater negative effect on our economy compared with the previous one,” said Schussler.

However, Gumtree SA general manager Claire Cobbledick offers a contrarian view to the all-encompassing doom and gloom. “The corona-coaster, as we have dubbed it, is a constant ride of highs and lows, but our internal data indicates some encouraging markers on the job vacancy front,” she says. 

Cobbledick says that in 2019, Gumtree recorded about 100,000 employment opportunities on the site. There are also just under 10,000 live jobs advertised on the website from a cross-section of industries, and she expects to see a rise in these numbers in the coming months.

The top 10 job specs on Gumtree are:

• 1,477 sales jobs;
• 961 jobs in construction and trade;
• 614 driving and logistics positions;
• 526 accounting and finance jobs;
• 514 manufacturing jobs;
• 505 general work opportunities;
• 468 health-care and nursing jobs;
• 445 IT and tech roles;
• 413 advertising and marketing opportunities; and 
• 381 admin jobs.

Gumtree operations head Barrie Swart says: “The best way to stimulate the economy is by supporting small to medium enterprises (SMEs).”

Pre-Covid data suggested that 525,000 SMEs were employing six-million South Africans, but this figure is likely to be negatively affected due to lockdown.

Swart says: “Gumtree offers a great way for companies that have vacancies to connect with people who are looking for new employment opportunities. We believe our technology supports our communities by streamlining the recruitment and job-seeking processes, and helps small businesses to keep going — and even growing — during this unusual business period.”

This article was paid for by Gumtree SA.