Confidence among graduates slightly down

SA suffered a series of blows to its confidence after the Marikana shooting on 16 August‚ and the subsequent downgrading of SA's sovereign rating by the three major international ratings agencies‚ Moody's‚ Standard and Poor and Fitch.

That is in part why the less than half of the 6‚000 graduates surveyed expect an improvement in SA's unemployment over the next five years with a reading of 38% in the fourth quarter compared with 44% in the previous year.

That is also reflected in the answer to the question as to whether the graduate will remain in SA for the foreseeable future. The response dropped from 83% a year ago to 75% in the fourth quarter.

Confidence in the standard of education in SA dropped to 44% from 48% a year ago‚ while confidence in the economic outlook for SA over the next 12 months eased to 55% from 63% a year ago.

The majority of SA's graduate professionals are concerned about the low level of savings among consumers and support the idea of some form of compulsory preservation fund to foster a greater savings culture‚ according to the PPS survey.

The survey showed that 91% of those surveyed do not believe tax incentives by the government are sufficient to encourage South Africans to save.

PPS undertook the survey to gain insight into the graduate professional segment in SA to ascertain their views on a number of issues.

SA continues to suffer from an acute skills shortage‚ particularly among skilled professionals.