South Africa’s job market is expected to take a huge knock after the national lockdown.
Data by job search engine Adzuna shows the number of job postings plunged by 7.3% in the past two weeks.
“At the moment it’s under 10%,” said Jesse Green, Adzuna’s manager in South Africa. “We believe it is because the numbers are low in comparison to other countries, in the EU for example. It is expected to drop dramatically if the number of cases increases and the government steps in.”
The job search engine, which exists in 16 countries, including Italy, pulled together data/stats on the impact of coronavirus on the global job market.
The data was sourced from live vacancies from March 1 to March 15, and is based on more than 12 million live job vacancies aggregated in real time from thousands of job sources across 16 international markets.
Adzuna found that job vacancies had dropped 41% in Italy in the past two weeks, while Austria is the second biggest casualty, with 29%.
This follows a series of drastic measures to contain the outbreak, including exit restrictions across the country.
New Zealand and Brazil have also seen more than a 20% drop this month, while the UK has lost 17% of vacancies in the same period.
IT, engineering, legal, hospitality and manufacturing are among the many industries that have seen a notable decline across the world this month.
IT job vacancies have dropped by more than a fifth (-21.7%), while engineering job vacancies are down 17.5%.
Hospitality vacancies have dropped by 9.1%.
The situation is expected to worsen as government restrictions around social contact take hold. Trade and construction, as well as manufacturing jobs, have also felt the strain with an 8.2% and 7.8% drop respectively.
The travel industry is also predicted to fall because of continued travel restrictions. While travel jobs are down only 14% in South Africa since March 1, travel vacancies have dropped 58% in the UK in the past two weeks,
“The hospitality, food and beverage industry will suffer the most in South Africa, along with travel and those requiring people to meet and gather,” said Green.
Doug Monro, the co-founder of Adzuna, says the coronavirus has had a horrific impact on jobs globally.
“The past few weeks have been incredibly difficult, we have sadly seen infections increase across the globe and drastic measures put in place to prevent the spread,” said Monro.
“This level of uncertainty, coupled with physical restrictions in movement, has caused an alarming drop in vacancies across the majority of industries, although some like health care and delivery-based sectors are growing.”