The Public Service Vacancy Circular

What it is

The Public Service Vacancy Circular — "PSVC", or just "the circular" — is published by the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA). Its own introduction describes it as containing "the advertisements of vacant posts and jobs in Public Service departments", and adds a line worth remembering: although the DPSA issues it, "the Department is not responsible for the content of the advertisements. Enquiries about an advertisement must be addressed to the relevant advertising department."

So the circular is a compilation, not a recruiter. Each department writes its own adverts, sets its own closing date and receives its own applications. The DPSA staples them together once a week and numbers the result. The most recent issue on this site, Circular 36 of 2026, issued Friday 9 October 2026, ran to 301 pages and 385 posts.

When it comes out

Weekly, usually on a Friday, "except during December" in the circular's own words. Issues are numbered within the year — Circular 31 of 2026 is the thirty-first issue of that year — and the number is how departments refer back to earlier adverts in their corrections. The last issue before the December break and the first of the new year are typically larger.

On this site each issue is processed the day it is published where possible; the home page shows the current edition and the measured hours between the circular's date and its posts going live here.

How it is laid out

Every issue follows the same structure, which is what makes it possible to parse:

1. Front matter. The introduction, "Directions to candidates" (use the new Z83, quote the reference number, apply to the department, meet the closing date), directions to departments, and the link to the SMS pre-entry course.
2. Amendments. A page or two of corrections to earlier issues — see below. Easy to skip and the most important part to read if you have already applied for something.
3. The index. Two tables: national departments and provincial administrations, each with an annexure letter and a page range. Annexures A onward are national departments in alphabetical order; the provinces follow, Eastern Cape through Western Cape.
4. The annexures. One per department (or per province, subdivided by department). Each opens with the department's own application instructions — where to send it, the closing date, and a NOTE block that repeats the Z83 rules and adds the department's conditions — and then lists the posts, senior management first ("Management Echelon") and everyone else after ("Other Posts").

Anatomy of a post

Each advert is numbered POST 31/07 — issue 31, seventh post — and carries the same labelled fields in the same order:

• The title and reference number, sometimes with a directorate or branch on the next line and "(X3 POSTS)" where several are open.
• SALARY — a figure and a level, a range, or an OSD grade. How to read it.
• CENTRE — where the post is based, from "Pretoria" to a named hospital or district office. Some list several.
• REQUIREMENTS — qualifications, experience, registration, sometimes a driver's licence; the paragraph a selection panel screens against.
• DUTIES — what the job is.
• ENQUIRIES — a named person and a phone number. Use them.
• APPLICATIONS, FOR ATTENTION, CLOSING DATE and NOTE — where the post's instructions differ from the department's, they appear here; otherwise the ones at the top of the annexure apply.

On a job page here every field is shown as printed, with the page of the PDF it came from, and an AI-generated summary sits above it clearly labelled as such.

Why closing dates differ

Because each department sets its own. The circular's directions say only that applications must reach the advertising department "on or before the applicable closing dates"; the dates themselves are the departments'. Most give about two weeks from the circular's date, so an issue's posts cluster on one or two Fridays — which is why the departures board on this site shows a few big dates rather than a spread — but some give three or four weeks, a few give less, and a growing number state a closing time (16:00 is common; online systems sometimes allow 23:59).

A post whose closing date the circular does not state, or states ambiguously, is shown here as Not stated in circular rather than guessed. Closing this week lists everything with a deadline in the next seven days.

Amendments, withdrawals and errata

The pages after the front matter carry notices about earlier issues, in the departments' own words: a closing date extended, a reference number corrected, a salary notch amended, the number of posts reduced, or a post withdrawn altogether. They are easy to miss and they matter — a post you applied for last week may have been pulled, or given you another fortnight.

This site reads those notices and applies them to the posts they name: an extended post shows its new date and its original, a withdrawn post keeps its page with a banner saying so, and every change is listed on the job page with a link to the notice in the later circular. Where a notice is ambiguous it is held for a human to resolve rather than applied automatically.

What is not in it

The circular covers national and provincial departments. It does not carry:

• Teaching posts — provincial education departments advertise educator posts in their own bulletins; the circular carries their office and district posts only.
• Municipal jobs — local government recruits separately, through each municipality.
• SAPS, SANDF and Correctional Services uniformed intakes — the departments' own recruitment drives; their civilian and some professional posts do appear.
• Public entities and SOEs — Eskom, Transnet, SASSA, SARS and the like recruit on their own sites, though a few entities do advertise through the circular.

If a "government job" you have been sent is not in the circular and not on the department's own site, be careful: no government post ever charges an application fee, and a vacancy that exists nowhere official is usually a scam.

How this site uses it

GovPosts is an independent index of the circular — not a government site, and not affiliated with the DPSA. Each issue's PDF is parsed into individual posts, tagged by province, department, category and salary level, and made searchable. The original PDF is linked from every job page at the page the post was printed on, because the circular is the only authoritative source. Where it does not state something, the site says so; nothing is inferred, averaged or filled in. 2 issues are in the archive.

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