Escalating Fashion and Retail Scene Opens Doors for Job Creation

South Africa is receiving Global recognition from a fashion design perspective, with a fresh new take on garments and the words “Afro-chic fashion” flying around, designers are achieving global recognition within the Fashion industry and in doing so are finding themselves in a position to outsource work to textile workers within South Africa. Where there is a boost in trade, there will be a boost in jobs bringing together designers, retailers and manufacturers in South Africa while boosting the availability of positions within this exciting industry.

Fashion Jobs on SA Job Portals:

A search across major South African Job Portals brought up 1,068 jobs for the keyword “Fashion”. While this seems to be a growing industry, the number of jobs in comparison to other sectors is still low.

CEO of one of South Africa’s leading Jobs portals mentions that while the fashion industry is still amongst one of our smallest job categories, we are noticing a considerable increase in the number of jobs being posted for candidates. Our database currently has just shy of 3,000 active job seekers registered specifically within the Fashion industry and who are currently looking for jobs in this industry specifically. That is double the amount of candidates than there are jobs available at present.

The average salaries for the jobs available for junior positions in Fashion range from Entry/Junior level R45 000 – R11 000, for Mid the range is R12 000 – R25 000and Senior R26 000 – R45 000 and Executive Level R46 000 +. These figures indicate that the Fashion industry is in line with most salary offerings.

A Leading Fashion Recruitment specialist says that the fashion industry has seen phenomenal growth in certain sectors mainly retail as many new international brands are being launched into South Africa; this has provided an increase in job opportunities within the retail sector. We have noticed in 2012 that there has been significant increase in people looking for new careers we believe this is due to the many companies in the industry halting salary increases during the recession as the industry is now starting to recover candidates are now looking for better prospects in terms of career advancement as well better financial remuneration”.

Head of Recruitment for leading brands says that candidates always have to have a minimum requirement: Diploma or Degree in the fashion Industry. Two of the best T degree’s obtained to enter into the market are from Pretoria University called a BSC Clothing or a BA Degree from LISOF”.

Leading South African Job portal went a little deeper into identifying how candidates are searching on the web, using the search terms “Jobs in Retail” and “smartparenting