SMEs play a crucial role in most economies, and South Africa is no exception. They are also important contributors to job creation and global economic development. According to the World Bank Group SMEs represent about 90% of businesses worldwide, while the International Finance Corporation revealed that roughly 50 to 60% of South Africa’s workforce finds employment within SMEs.
A key challenge SMEs face is finding employees who are a good fit for their business, and who have the skills required to increase efficiency and business growth. Pnet researched the recruitment needs of SMEs over 12 months (Q2 2022 to 2023) and the findings revealed that information technology skills, finance skills, business and management skills, admin, office and support skills, and sales skills are most in demand across employers in the SME space.
Salaries and wages across various sectors and roles differ greatly in South Africa. Pnet analysed jobs with the highest salary offers over a 12-month period (September 2022 to 2023) and the findings revealed that IT was the second-highest paying job sector in the country, after business and management. Software developers can expect monthly salary offers ranging from R37 000 to R66 000, depending on their years of experience, the software they specialise in (for example Python, Java, HTML, etc.), and the job location. As the ‘Silicon Valley’ of South Africa, the Western Cape tends to offer the highest software developer salaries, followed by Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.
European research findings reveal that the lack of software development skills is challenging for the SME market, and that a pervasive shortage of digital skills can severely impact SMEs in their efforts to adopt new technologies. Thus, it is essential for SMEs to widen the skill set and competencies of existing staff, and be able to recruit externally when investing in technology.
Despite the need to attract and retain skilled talent, SMEs often face various recruitment challenges such as time-to-hire and the hefty price tag often associated with sourcing suitable candidate.
Specialised online recruitment platforms offer SMEs a range of benefits to help them save both time and money during the hiring process, and find the right candidates for their vacancies – ultimately driving business success.
Reducing time-to-hire
Sourcing candidates directly using smart-matching technology streamlines the hiring process so that SMEs can quickly and directly reach more jobseekers. SMEs can advertise their vacancies directly to active jobseekers or tap into a database of professional candidates. Sophisticated platforms like Pnet’s online recruitment portal offer a host of easy-to-use tools and features to easily filter and shortlist candidates with the required IT skills from their database of over six million jobseekers. What’s more, recruiters’ job ads get further reach from the 100 million Job Alerts that Pnet sends directly to jobseekers’ inboxes every month.
Reducing recruitment costs
By going direct to the source of suitable candidates using specialised recruitment platforms like Pnet, SMEs can save up to 60% on their recruitment costs. Pnet’s online recruitment platform uses advanced algorithms and analytics to target job advertisements to the most relevant candidates. This enables recruiters to find quality candidates using locally relevant filters, and even create a talent pool to access when they need to hire for similar roles in the future.
Built-for-purpose online recruitment platforms like Pnet are emerging as powerful tools to help SMEs find the right candidates for their vacant roles, thereby boosting their competitiveness in the market. In fact, these platforms have become a game changer for companies of all sizes, allowing them to flourish by attracting and retaining their most important asset – people.
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