The Work in Life survey, conducted among readers of the appointments section of Business Times, reveals some home truths about workers' views of their employers and the recruitment industry. It points to high levels of job insecurity in some industries and raises concerns about sexism, racism and ageism in the SA working environment. The key findings were presented to the recruitment industry in Johannesburg this week and will be presented in Durban and Cape Town in the next few days. A large percentage of people over the age of 45 believe that job prospects are limited and feel unhappy about affirmative action in the workplace reducing their career prospects.
Most respondents still feel that racism is evident in the workplace.
The most insecurity was evident in education, mining and government. The survey, the first of its kind in SA, is modelled on one undertaken in Britain by the Daily and Sunday Telegraph. The survey reveals different attitudes to job seeking between men and women. Men are most likely to move jobs in the interests of better career prospects and financial packages, while women rank job satisfaction and skills expansion as their greatest motivators. But despite an often mercenary slant to the 90s worker, two-thirds of respondents say they will not work for some companies on moral grounds.