An increasing number of skilled South Africans are looking to emigrate according to recruiting firm, the Induku Consulting Group, which says that contrary to popular belief more black professionals are looking to make the move.

“In South Africa, while many thought emigration was only a phenomenon amongst white professionals, in recent years, it is known that the number of black professionals leaving South Africa has exceeded white emigrants,” the group said.

“New Zealand, Australia and Canada remain viable destinations to emigrate to. The inability to amass sufficient points has however found many families being denied access with their visa applications being disapproved.

“The USA and pursuing ‘the American dream’ would appear to be a real and attractive alternative.”

This aligns with recent findings by the Enterprise Observatory of South Africa (EOSA) which looked at how South Africa’s financial and business sector has shrunk dramatically over the last 10 years.

The EOSA’s Johannes Wessels said that the 2017 government white paper on migration found that for every South African emigrating to South Africa, eight are leaving.

The same white paper showed that the average number of black professionals leaving the country exceeds the number of white South Africans leaving.

This shows that black South Africans are also voting with their feet and that the push factors behind this mass emigration impacts everyone, he said.

Skilled professionals leaving

A large number of these South Africans looking to emigrate are skilled professionals.

According to Sable International’s Andrew Rissik, around 25,000 skilled people leaving South Africa each year, with around 1,000 – 2,000 of these people also being very wealthy people who are able to buy their way into other countries.

This averages out to around 68 skilled people, and between two and five ultra-wealthy South Africans, leaving the country every day.

“These are potentially very high-quality taxpayers that South Africa is losing,” said Rissik.

“What we see is that a lot of people with young children tend to start getting pulled back to South Africa because of family links.

“Although we have seen this (trend) slow compared to the past decade because of the economic situation in South Africa as we know it – it’s really pretty negative at the moment.”

Rissik added that as long as ‘push factors’ are present, people will continue to leave.

Read: Here’s how many skilled professionals are leaving South Africa every day