New graduates will have fewer employment opportunities in 2019- research
The future for new graduates seems bleak going into the new year as fewer employment opportunities will be available, according to a research conducted by Simonis Storms Securities.
The firm attributes this to a very bleak economic outlook and lower business confidence, seeing that the local economic growth for 2019 is expected to remain in a lower gear if not in reverse.
The survey conducted revealed that only 8% of the respondents expect to hire more people next year.
The research shows that there is wide expectation that new graduates will find it harder to find jobs which in turn will lead to an increase in youth unemployment which is currently at 43.4%.
Furthermore only 24% of the respondents expect to lay off people in 2019, with 68% expecting overall employment rate to remain fairly stable around the current broad unemployment of 34%.
“We observe a cool off on high expectations of lay off in 2019 compared to the past 4 years and rather respondents expecting employment to remain relatively stable. This is encouraging and perhaps showing signs that we are bottoming economically,” the firm said.
Simonis Storms also revised its gross domestic product forecast for 2019 from 1.8% to 0.7%. According to the firm, mining and construction are the main contributors to the expected growth.
