Overall, we anticipate business across Africa to continue to remain modest-to-moderate in the wake of the Covid crisis and the unique challenges faced by businesses operating in the region.

South Africa faces distinctive challenges of its own, including load-shedding, water-shedding and ever-growing poverty rates. In addition, there is a massive trend towards emigration amongst South African professionals. Despite this, we expect salary increases at mid-to-senior levels to remain moderate, at a rate of approximately 5-12%. The most notable hiring increases have been within the Pharmaceutical, Technology, Mining, Telecoms, and Energy industries, and we expect this trend to continue into 2023. Further to the above, we have noticed an increased demand for Investment Management, Fund Management and Banking professionals.

Despite unemployment rates across West Africa, we foresee an increase in hiring opportunities at more senior levels, particularly within the Oil & Gas and Agriculture industries. We also expect Agritech, Fintech, and Edutech businesses to be at the forefront of this upsurge, as a result of the massive increase in digitisation in the West African region.

Due to a notable upsurge in international investments in East Africa, we foresee an increase in demand for talent across this region; specifically within the IT, Digital, Infrastructure and FinTech industries. East Africa is expected to follow a similar trend to that observed in the Western region: an increased drive towards digitisation, meaning an increased prevalence of hybrid and remote roles.