The best place to find a job in South Africa – and the people who are hiring

Jobs website Adzuna has published new data on the areas in South Africa with the most job openings.

Adzuna ranked the top 10 cities in South Arica by comparing vacancies in our comprehensive search index of over 140,000 live jobs to the number of claimants in each city from the latest data.

It also analysed the distribution of job titles and categories to determine which jobs are highest in demand in each city and province.

“The results show that there are huge variations in the prospects for jobseekers across the country, and considerable differences in the types of roles that are in demand across South Africa’s most popular cities,” said Adzuna country manager Jesse Green.

“Even with a staggering unemployment rate, it appears that the SA job market isn’t buckling under the pressure.”

The best place to find a job

The city of Johannesburg is now the easiest place to find a job in the country with over 16,000 jobs advertised at the end of September 2019.

The city’s employment growth continues to be boosted by tech developments, with the number of IT sector vacancies in the city making up 39% of all IT jobs in South Africa, Adzuna said.

Johannesburg is closely followed by Cape Town with Pretoria coming in a distant third.

Pietermaritzburg is one of the hardest cities to find a job with just 373 jobs on offer.

Bloemfontein comes second, with just 432 vacancies, roughly 0.5% of the number of jobs currently on offer in the country.

Rank	City	Province	Jobs on offer
1	Johannesburg	Gauteng	16 608
2	Cape Town	Western Cape	12 062
3	Pretoria	Gauteng	4 669
4	Durban	KZN	4 198
5	East Rand	Gauteng	2 442
6	Port Elizabeth	Eastern Cape	1 323
7	Winelands	Western Cape	976
8	East London	Eastern Cape	710
9	Bloemfontein	Free State	423
10	Pietermaritzburg	KZN	373

Who is hiring?

Adzuna found that the job sectors most in demand are engineering, IT, and finance.

“Strong demand for a limited supply of skilled professionals in IT and engineering reflects in the salaries for these roles too, with the average salaries for these jobs being three times as much as the average national salary per year,” it said.

In comparison, the sectors with the lowest demand include healthcare, logistics and retail.

City	Province	Highest Demand Jobs	Lowest Demand Jobs
Johannesburg	Gauteng	IT, Finance, Engineering	Healthcare, Retail, HR
Cape Town	Western Cape	IT, Accounting, Engineering	Logistics, Customer Service, Manufacturing
Pretoria	Gauteng	Finance, IT, Admin	Customer Service, Healthcare, Logistics
Durban	KZN	Engineering, Accounting, Admin	Construction, Manufacturing, Retail
East Rand	Gauteng	Finance, Admin, Sales	Construction, Retail, IT