{"id":306566,"date":"2019-03-24T19:00:40","date_gmt":"2019-03-24T17:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=306566"},"modified":"2019-03-22T17:34:32","modified_gmt":"2019-03-22T15:34:32","slug":"the-biggest-reason-why-skilled-professionals-are-leaving-south-africa-and-why-some-are-coming-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/306566\/the-biggest-reason-why-skilled-professionals-are-leaving-south-africa-and-why-some-are-coming-back\/","title":{"rendered":"The biggest reason why skilled professionals are leaving South Africa &#8211; and why some are coming back"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Emigrants consistently cite the same reasons for why they choose to leave and return home to South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>This is according to Angel Jones, CEO of Homecoming Revolution, a recruitment firm that specialises in &#8216;brain gain&#8217; and bringing global African talent back to the continent.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbcafrica.com\/videos\/2019\/03\/22\/this-firm-vows-to-fight-africas-brain-drain\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">CBC Africa<\/a><\/strong>, Jones said that the biggest reason that people leave the country is for career prospects.<\/p>\n<p>By comparison, the number one reason for returning is friends and family.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;People abroad want to be at home and bring their children back home with grandparents close by &#8211; that&#8217;s the main drawcard,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Next on the list is a sense of belonging and a number of people are also returning home in search of an innovative career,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>Jones said that she often deals with professionals in their late twenties and early thirties who are recently married and have begun starting a family.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These families leave the country in the hopes that the grass is greener on the other side &#8211; but this isn&#8217;t necessarily the case,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;(These professionals) realise actually how easy you do have it back home with grannies and grandpas and it&#8217;s that emotional drawcard that brings them back.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Demand<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Jones said that she primarily deals with emigrants between 28 &#8211; 40 years of age who have five years of international experience.<\/p>\n<p>She said that these individuals were particularly valuable as they have valuable international exposure but still understand the nuances of working back home.<\/p>\n<p>She added that there was a demand across the continent for the following sectors:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>C-Suite level executives (CFOs, CMOs and general managers);<\/li>\n<li>Cybersecurity;<\/li>\n<li>Data analytics;<\/li>\n<li>E-commerce;<\/li>\n<li>Fintech;<\/li>\n<li>Software development.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Jones said that conservative estimates show that there are around 900,000 South Africans living abroad.<\/p>\n<p>However, Homecoming Revolution believes that this number is likely closer to three times as high (2,700,000+), she said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We saw when Ramaphosa came in that enquiries tripled.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;However, enquiries tapered off by between 15-20% since the start of 2019 because of Eskom,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We estimate that for every one skilled that returns home, seven new jobs are created in the formal and informal sectors.&#8221;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wealth\/306208\/heres-how-many-work-permits-were-granted-to-south-africans-by-the-uk-government-lat-year\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Here\u2019s how many work permits were granted to South Africans by the UK government last year<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Emigrants consistently cite the same reasons for why they choose to return home to South Africa, according to Angel Jones, CEO of Homecoming Revolution, a recruitment firm that specialises in &#8216;brain gain&#8217; and bringing global African talent back to the continent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":292744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26,13858],"class_list":["post-306566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-headline","tag-homecoming-revolution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306566"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":306650,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306566\/revisions\/306650"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}