More global employers recruiting South Africans as skills shortages grow

Stephen Grootes speaks to Paul Byrne Head of Insights at Pnet, about new data showing rising global demand for South African talent.

Listen to the interview in the audio player below.

More international companies are looking to hire South African professionals, according to the latest data from recruitment platform Pnet.

In its Pnet Job Market Trends Report for February, the company found that the share of overseas job adverts aimed at South Africans has slowly increased over the past few years.

In 2021, international roles made up about 1.6% of all job advertisements on Pnet’s platform. By 2025, that number had risen to 2.2%.

While still a small portion of the overall job market, the trend shows that global employers are increasingly looking to South Africa for skilled workers.

For the past four years, Australia has been the main country actively recruiting South Africans.

Despite this, the number of Australian job adverts targeting South Africans fell by about 17% in 2025.

Even with that decline, Australia remains a key destination because of ongoing skills shortages in technical and trade roles. Employers there are particularly looking for workers in areas such as:

• Construction
• Plumbing
• Electrical work
• Engineering maintenance

These shortages are partly due to large infrastructure projects and an ageing workforce, which means more skilled workers are needed.

Other countries that are recruiting a high number of South Africans include Saudi Arabia, Netherlands, Namibia and Botswana.

Speaking to Stephen Grootes on The Money Show, Paul Byrne Head of Insights at Pnet says the latest job market trends indicate that a growing share of international vacancies are actively targeting professionals in South Africa.

"It's gone from about 1,6% of our total job base that we've been advertising across South Africa in 2021 to 2,2% in 2025. That might not sound like a massive increase, but if you look at the real volume, that translates to about 38% increase in the volume of job ads that have been advertised to target our South African talent."

- Paul Byrne, Head of Insights - Pnet 

"What we do know is that our labour force is cost-effective. I think our labour costs are generally lower than in most of the developed market."

- Paul Byrne, Head of Insights - Pnet

"We know that we've got a skilled workforce. We produce really strong talent in fields like engineering, I.T and finance, and that's deeply sort after overseas at the moment. We've got deep experience here in South Africa that are used to working across diverse industries."

- Paul Byrne, Head of Insights - Pnet  

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