Being South East Asia’s largest economy and an emerging market, Indonesia has enjoyed positive growth in the last few years, and continues to display positive signs of growth in 2015.

The job market in Indonesia is upbeat and is expected to remain healthy in 2015 with employees displaying strong confidence about opportunities in the current market.

With foreign multinationals looking at Indonesia as one of the markets with tremendous potentials for their expansion plans, the war for talent is only going to pick up heat further.

According to 2015 Michael Page Indonesia Employee Intentions Report, majority of respondents say the level of job opportunities in the country will be the same or improve (94%). This sentiment is felt most strongly by professionals in sales & marketing (75%), procurement & supply chain (74%) as well as human resources (69%).

Indonesia’s job market also exudes confidence from the fact, with almost three quarters (72%) of respondents expressed intentions to change job roles this year. This shows there is a wider choice of job opportunities for jobseekers while companies will have to relook at their attraction and retention strategies in order to retain top talent.

Maturing Workforce Driven by Financial Rewards

While there are signs of an emerging matured workforce those who place emphasis on non-tangible benefits such as a scope for career progression (18%) and gaining a promotion as well as a more senior role (17%), the majority of the workforce in Indonesia continues to list financial rewards such as an increase in salary as the top reason that they are looking for a new role and job change (24%).

See: Challenges to HR management in Indonesia

The most commonly expected salary increase that Indonesian’s expect when moving to a new role is 30% or more from the current pay. Increased salary expectation among employees would mean employers will have to look at innovative and alternative means to find, recruit and retain the top talent.

Additionally, salaries in Indonesia are still considered relatively low when compared to their South East Asian counterparts. Employers will need to adjust salary expectations or try to rework compensation packages with innovative attraction tools.

This would further require employers to drift focus from the traditional retention strategies and look beyond for innovative tools that will help them strategise their retention efforts effectively.

Besides performance appraisals being the obvious factors why employees continue to stay with a company, non-financial based strategies such as leadership and a motivating manager (16%) or good company culture (13%) will also help retain workforce and build their careers with an organisation.

This survey also highlighted some interesting findings as regards promotions, wherein 60 percent of the respondents indicated that they received a promotion in the last two years. These are indeed positive maturing signs of the Indonesian workforce with professionals progressing in their roles and gaining more experience and skills as they develop their careers.

Indonesia remains a challenging but potentially highly lucrative market. Human capital is central to this both in terms of talent attraction as well as retention. While financial rewards continue to be the major influential factor for people looking for job role change, but the emerging market is all poised to make most of the positive domestic economic climate.

Also read: Asia Pacific Salary Levels Increase minimally in 2015