There was a seasonal dip in job advertisement levels in the last quarter of 2011 in the run up to the festive period and year-end budget reviews. Total job advertisements across the region fell by 3% from Q3 to Q4 2011.

Singapore: Contract hires increased toward year end
• There was a 10% decrease in job advertisement levels from Q3 to Q4 2011
• Companies chose to postpone job hiring until after the festive period
• The conservative global economic climate has led employers to increasingly look toward hiring contract professionals in sectors such as HR and operations in order to reduce costs. This tended to be done directly which resulted in a fall in job advertisements of 11% and 12% for each respective sector
• Within the private sector, particularly within banking and finance, hiring continued to be weak as many international banks made redundancies and imposed hiring freezes
• However, the increase in public sector projects looks set to fuel recruitment activity in the coming months, particularly within construction and industry

Hong Kong: Recruitment activity fell in line with seasonal trends
• Job advertisement levels fell by 14% from Q3 to Q4 2011
• Recruitment advertising in sales and business development fell slightly by 3% as companies sought to maintain revenue generating positions to meet the demands of tourists still visiting the region from the mainland
• Levels of job advertisements in property also slowed in conjunction with the fall in property loan approvals in 2011
• This resulted in a 13% drop in advertisements for professional positions in real estate

China: Growth in niche areas despite cautious market sentiment
• Recruitment levels in IT services rose by 13% as companies continued to recruit for this niche area, requiring more sophisticated types of IT functions to meet growing demand
• Overall levels of job advertisements in China fell by 3% from Q3 to Q4 2011 indicating a seasonal reduction in line with expectations of this time of the year
• Companies were keen to cut costs and recruitment levels within advertising and marketing –non-revenue generating functions of most organisations – declined by 13%
• Nevertheless, Chinese companies continued to grow with year-on-year growth in -job advertisements of 20% from Q4 2010 to Q4 2011.

Malaysia: Increase in medical sciences recruitment activity
• There was a rise of 16% in medical advertisements to meet growing demand. Healthcare professionals were sought-after as the life and medical sciences sectors continued to grow.
• However, job advertisements in Malaysia declined by 11% from Q3 to Q4 2011.
• Advertisements for banking and finance professionals continued to decline as Malaysia felt the effects of global economic uncertainty. These advertisements fell by 12%.
• On a positive note, international business continued to look at Malaysia as a potential location for shared service centres.

Methodology
The Robert Walters Asia Job Index tracks the number of job advertisements on a daily basis across the executive appointments sections of key newspapers and leading online job boards in Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, Korea and Hong Kong. In China, job opportunities are largely advertised online via job portals and as such, the index will only track online job advertisements for this market. View the complete listing of the publications and job boards included in our findings. http://asiajobindex.com/methodology.html

Download the full report.

Source : Robert Walters

This article first appeared in the July 2011 issue of HR Matters Magazine. Copyright HR Matters Magazine. All rights reserved. No part of these article, either text or image may be used or reproduced with express written permission from HR Matters Magazine. For copies of this article, to link online or to order reprints, please contact editor@hr-matters.info. For more info, please visit http://www.hr-matters.info.