South Africa’s Enjoying a Brain Gain! Expats Return! And More are Welcome!

South Africans who left the country are returning in droves, according to figures released this week by labour market specialist Adcorp. An estimated 359,000 have returned home since 2008. And thousands more are urged to return to fairly “cosy” conditions and a skills market that needs them.

Whilst it’s difficult to pinpoint an exact figure because (for some reason) Home Affairs no longer keep records of every South African immigrant and emigrant, Adcorp estimated the net number of high-skilled immigrants returning by using wage data for high-skilled workers.

In a statement, Adcorp said: “Data from Adcorp’s recruitment subsidiaries that specialise in placing high-skilled personnel – categorised as workers who earned more than R400,000 per annum in 2013 – provides an interesting opportunity to estimate the number of South Africans who have returned from abroad since the global financial crisis began in 2008.”

Adcorp’s Chief Labour Analyst Loane Sharp attributes this “brain gain” to:

• a downturn in the global economy resulting in many South Africans losing their jobs abroad;
• the lure of South Africa’s relatively high standard of living – with the current exchange rate of the Rand against the Dollar meaning that you get “double the living standard in real terms in South Africa than you do in the United States”; and
• the fact that high-skilled professionals are in huge demand in South Africa, contrary to public perception.

Wayne Stainforth, owner of Greys Recruitment Group, confirmed that “the concept that expats won’t find jobs is a myth. Anyone with a good CV will find work easily enough due to the massive skills shortages we face.”

He stresses however that it is “important that they need to have a good CV to find a job. If they had a bad CV when they left and it’s remained that way, they will still battle here!”

Adcorp’s calculations indicate that there are 830,000 unfilled vacancies in the Private Sector alone!

These are jobs waiting to be filled, and that mostly can only be filled by an additional supply of returning South African residents since stringent immigration laws introduced over the last 12 years make it extremely difficult for foreigners to work in South Africa.

There is no specific skill that is more in demand than another. “I cannot think of an industry where talent is not in high demand, and where we are not experiencing shortages,” said Stainforth.

“South Africa has changed in that it is an applicant’s market. Whereas before when we advertised a position we made a selection from several good candidates, now we have one primarily good applicant and at times none at all with clients sometimes parking the positions, waiting for the right fit.”

Stainforth advises interested professionals to search online (Pnet, Career Junction, Careers24) and “it’s important to make the commitment to return and not be iffy about it with a ‘wait and see what happens’ option.”

And this demand for high-skilled professionals is likely to continue.

Stainforth points out that there is a big drive by South African companies into Africa so the skills shortages will be further compounded by a number of locals doing projects in the neighbouring states. There are also numerous local projects underway, with more in preparation including green energy projects (like wind turbines in the Eastern Cape), new power plants, Durban’s extended port and more).

Sharp noted that while the overall unemployment rate is 37%, it is only 0.4% in the high-skilled professionals sector, meaning “South Africans are returning to very cosy conditions at home.”

He also pointed out that there is a risk that once international labour markets improve, there will be a reversal in this trend of South Africans moving home.  

For now, the South African skills shortage is so substantial that Sharp concludes that “restrictions on foreigners living and working in South Africa should be relaxed, since this would supplement the dwindling local supply of skills.”

Unless enough expat South Africans return…