“Johannesburg has a lot of soul, a lot of culture, a lot of South Africa,” says Azra Joosab. An articled clerk training to be a chartered accountant, Joosab (25) moved to Johannesburg at the beginning of 2008.
“While the quality of life is wonderful in Cape Town, if you want to experience new things and different kinds of people, there is so much more diversity in Johannesburg.”
Cape Town, with the mountains, the sea and the winelands, is “a holiday destination even when you live there”, Joosab says.
So why has she traded the mountains for the mine dumps? “I’m working for much bigger clients here than I would be as an articled clerk in Cape Town,” she says. “There’s greater scope in my profession, the company is bigger and the opportunities are numerous.”
Ten years ago the more typical trend saw people moving to the coast for a better quality of life, but tough economic times have turned the tables. And Joosab isn’t the only one who has opted for the career rewards that come with the tough but tempting territory of Africa’s boomtown.
Household removals companies have noticed an increase in people wanting to move to the Highveld from the coastal areas — especially Cape Town. Owen Farmerey, a branch manager at Biddulphs International in Cape Town, says there was a higher movement of households in 2006-08 than in 2005.
“We found that this ‘boom’ period of moves out of Cape Town comprised a large percentage of corporate relocations — companies centralising their head offices in Gauteng,” he says.
BP and Old Mutual South Africa are among the companies that have moved either their head offices or core functions to Johannesburg. Old Mutual spokesperson Ursula van der Westhuizen says the company moved its key leadership functions to Sandton, Johannesburg, in 2006 to work more closely with key group partners, such as Nedbank and Mutual & Federal, which have their head offices in Johannesburg.
“It is the business and industrial hub of South Africa,” she says. “Old Mutual is also active in five other African countries and has a stated objective of capitalising on business opportunities emerging on the continent. Johannesburg provides the group with an ideal springboard from which to drive these initiatives.”
Engineers are the likeliest professionals to pack their bags for Johannesburg, says Tanja Koch, executive head of the Cape Town branch of DAV Professional Placement Group. “Also, mid-level professionals are more likely to make a move for opportunity reasons. Often they are still single and in a phase where career is more important than lifestyle,” says Koch.
By contrast, “senior professionals often look for a more balanced lifestyle for themselves and their families and tend to look for positions in Cape Town”, Koch says.
Black professionals are especially keen to move to Johannesburg where there are more contacts and networks, she says. “Transformation-wise, Johannesburg is much further along than Cape Town.”
But not all Capetonians move to Johannesburg reluctantly. John Parsonage (27), a candidate attorney, deliberately sought work in the City of Gold because he wanted “the change of pace”.
“Jo’burg has a reputation of being a place where you get more exposure,” he says. “I was a bit of a hippie in Cape Town and I wanted to be thrown into the lion’s den.”
He moved to Johannesburg just last month. “I didn’t want be that guy from Cape Town who’s always negative about Jo’burg. I’ve lived in New York and Amsterdam but I hadn’t lived in the biggest city in Africa.”
Chloe Foden (26), a strategy consultant who has lived in Johannesburg for more than four years, saw the move as a way to get out of her comfort zone while still playing it safe. “I needed a break from Cape Town but I didn’t want to leave South Africa. In my final year at the University of Cape Town I realised I didn’t want to go overseas yet: I wanted real work experience in South Africa first,” she says. “Jo’burg was a move to get some corporate experience.”
Theo Smit, head of management consulting at Premier Personnel, an executive recruitment agency, says the market is more buoyant in Gauteng and the pay is higher. “There’s a stronger demand to get back to Jo’burg than there used to be. You take a pay cut to live by the sea and mountain.”
He notes that many professionals higher up the ladder are opting for the “best of both worlds” — commuting. Senior executives maintain a family home at the coast and fly between Cape Town and Johannesburg during the week.
For people with families, the quality of life for children involves complex choices. Turhaan Samodien (37), who was an engineer at Eskom but is now a consultant at the parastatal, moved to Johannesburg 18 months ago when his wife, Kariema, landed a job with Shell. They arrived with their two children, aged six and 11. “We removed ourselves from a comfort zone and all our family in Cape Town. It was initially hard for all of us but we’ve now established new relationships,” Samodien says.
Educationally, it’s been a good move for their children: schools may be more expensive in Gauteng but the Samodiens, on their Johannesburg salaries, can afford them.
“Here we can afford to send our kids to a private school. In Cape Town we would have had to send them to a former Model C or public school. It was one of the factors in choosing to move up here.”
An unexpected perk for the Samodiens has been getting more family time. “Although Johannesburg is a lot faster paced, I get to spend a lot of time with my kids because I don’t [now as a consultant] work on weekends.”
But some spouses are more tentative about coming to Johannesburg. Dawood Peterson (33) is an attorney who made the move from Cape Town “against [his] best wishes” in September 2008. “My wife wanted to move. She felt professionally stifled in Cape Town,” he says.
For him there’s no contest between the cities. “Jo’burg has a serious lack of urban culture as a result of not having a nucleus. It’s a fragmented city. It’s not youth-friendly and it lags behind Cape Town in terms of live experimental music.”
His trepidation was compounded when he was mugged at gunpoint two months after moving here. But later, Peterson says, he “started to emerge”.
“As a professional, Jo’burg offers you a much more typical appreciation of the continent. It’s a gateway to neighbouring countries and it facilitates exploring the region.”
City facts
- Nine of the top 10 companies in the CRF Institute’s best employers for 2009-2010 have head offices based in Johannesburg.
- According to PayScale.com, the median salary in Johannesburg is R211 711 and in Cape Town R153 950.
- Despite contrary perceptions, property groups say rentals are similar in the two cities. Alisha Paterson, rentals manager at Seeff Sandton, says a two-bedroom apartment in the heart of Sandton averages R8 000 a month. Seeff rental agent Barbra-Ann Briner says average rentals along the Atlantic seaboard for a two-bedroom apartment range from R8 000 to R10 000.
- According to the Sunday Times Top 100 Schools survey for 2009, 28 of the country’s top 100 public schools are in Gauteng, 24 are in the Western Cape.
- Cape Town has all five of the South African establishments in S Pellegrino’s 2009 list of the 100 best restaurants in the world, as voted for by the world’s top chefs, food critics and restaurateurs — Le Quartier Francais, La Colombe, Jardine, Aubergine and Rust en Vrede.
For and against ..
Entertainment
“Going out in Cape Town is cheaper and there are wonderful things you can do cheaply. In Jo’burg you spend more on things like eating out. For example, a salad at Lazari [in Cape Town] is R40 and a salad at Bella’s [in Jo’burg] is R60, and they’re pretty similar in what they offer. Lazari has a view of the mountain and Bella’s has a view of a parking lot. Clubs in Cape Town are cheaper too.” — Chloe Foden, strategy consultant
“I spend more here to have fun because there are fewer open-air places just to walk around. In Cape Town you can go to Kirstenbosch Gardens and just sit there all day. For a picnic, you pay R50 a person including entrance. If you went out for lunch [in Jo’burg] it would come to R150 easily.” — Azra Joosab, articled clerk
“In Cape Town you just need to go to the mountain but here you need to drive far to be outdoors.” — John Parsonage, candidate attorney
Transport
“Driving [in Jo’burg] is crazy. You don’t walk anywhere here.” — John Parsonage
“Because everything is closer [in Cape Town], taxis are cheaper. It costs R200 for a taxi to go out here. In Cape Town it would cost R60.” — Chloe Foden
“You end up sitting in traffic half your life here [in Jo’burg]. We were told when we left Cape Town it was bad, but we didn’t expect it to be this bad.” — Turhaan Samodien