"Big Four" still hiring in South Africa

The recession is biting, the number of jobless South Africans is rising and all surveys point to a worsening of the employment outlook in the next few months. Despite this negative backdrop, recruiters say that South Africa's "big four" banks - Absa, Standard Bank, Nedbank, First Rand - continue to hire, in marked contrast to their foreign counterparts with offices in the country.

"Employers are more careful in hiring, but none of the top forty companies on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange have blanket recruitment freezes," says Anton Apps, CEO of Anton Apps International Recruitment Specialists in Johannesburg. "We in particular have not seen any slowdown in demand from the big four banks, they continue to hire, especially front office and support roles, finance manager and accountants."

Foreign banks in South Africa are fussy and definitely in crisis mode, while South African banks are hiring and making rapid decisions," says Apps. "After all, this is where the volume is. To put it in context, Goldman Sachs here has a total of 12 people, Deutsche Bank 250, JPMorgan 180. Standard Bank employs 60,000 people."

Veronique Parkin, partner and head of financial services at Heidrick & Struggles in Johannesburg, which specialises in senior and executive-level recruiting, agrees that the situation has improved: "Given the level at which we were a few months ago, things have definitely got better. It is our local banks that are hiring: they have not been as badly affected by the downturn as we feared, they are generating revenue and continue to look for good people to take on."

Despite the slowdown, South Africa is still a jobseeker's market. "We must be realistic: We are not the centre of the world, there is not that much talent knocking around, so the struggle for skills is always on, which is good for qualified people looking for a job," says Apps. "For example, I recently placed someone from the UK on the trading floor at Standard Bank and they were prepared to accept that someone with an excellent track record deserves a British salary. It just was not an issue."