i'm a fresh grad with 6 months experience so
you should consider that before believing anything i say. south african IT companies are finding it hard to survive ... we didn't have much of a dotcom boom so luckily we didn't experience too much of a dotcom blowout, but times are still tough.
the best way i can describe our job market is "weird"; i constantly hear people complain about not getting work and not getting paid nearly enough, but for every complainer there is at least one who smiles all the way to the bank. salaries are lower than europe/USA, but so is living cost. tax is a bit high and apparently jobs are scarce.
i say apparently, because i've had to say no to 2 job offers and i get job offers from 70% of my interviews and i get interviews, but i've not yet used ANY agents or ANY job ads ... obviously if jobs are scarce i they didn't include me in their survey ... finding a job is easy, finding the right job is harder.
also companies in SA are forced to employ "equal opportunity" style which means that as a young white male i'm at the very bottom of the food chain