SA created almost 24‚000 jobs in November-December

South Africa's formal sector created more than 5,000 permanent jobs in the last two months of last year. Image: Krasimira Nevenova Fotolia

The number of temporary jobs usually increases over the festive season.

Job creation remains a challenge for South Africa‚ with about 4.6m people unemployed. In the buildup to elections later this year President Jacob Zuma has set a target to create 6m jobs over the next five years.

The informal sector created 12‚722 jobs during November and December. Almost 6‚000 temporary jobs were created while 5‚271 permanent jobs were offered - the first time in 16 months that permanent employment levels grew.

"The construction and transport sectors added jobs‚ while the financial sector and mining shed workers‚" Adcorp said.

Adcorp labour market economist Loane Sharp said Adcorp had also examined the effect of immigration and emigration. This research showed that about 359‚000 highly skilled South Africans had returned from foreign work assignments since the global financial crisis in 2008. These figures were based on the net number of highly skilled people returning to the country using wage data for such workers.

Sharp said SA has about 829‚000 unfilled vacancies because of a consistent shortage of high-skilled workers.

He said the supply of highly skilled foreign workers had been "negligible" because of strict immigration laws that limit employment. He recommended that the restrictions on foreigners living and working in SA should be relaxed‚ since this would supplement the dwindling local supply of skills and allow positions to be filled.