It hasn’t been quite a positive third-quarter for HR professionals in South East Asia as online recruitment activity remains low in Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines.

Tight labour markets and slow economic conditions are still affecting the rate at which Human Resources and Administrative professionals are being hired online across Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines.

According to the latest Monster Employment Index (MEI) data, all three markets are continuing to experience a year-over-year decline in e-recruitment for these jobs, when comparing data from September 2014 and 2015.

However, the silver lining is that despite the overall negative year-over-year growth, hiring activity for these roles hasn’t further declined between August and September.

The MEI by Monster.com records industries and occupations that show the highest and lowest growth in recruitment activity in various markets.

In Singapore, HR & Admin jobs are still reporting negative growth at -5% year-over-year. However, this is a slight improvement from the -12% year-over-year witnessed in August 2015.

HR roles in Malaysia have not changed their position at -23% year-over-year, while the Philippines has witnessed an -11% decline, a leap from August 2015, which reported a-24% year-over-year result.

Despite this negative growth, HR jobs in both the Philippines and Singapore were in the top five highest growth occupations of all job roles monitored by the Index.

HR and Administration Jobs:

“As all three markets experience year-over-year declines in online hiring activity overall, there is less of an urgent need for HR and admin professionals to help businesses manage their recruitment processes and other personnel and human capital matters. Although human resources management remains incredibly important to businesses across the region presently, organisations are not feeling an immediate need to expand their HR headcounts,” said Sanjay Modi, Managing Director, Monster.com (India, Middle East, Southeast Asia and Hong Kong).

“While Singapore and Malaysia’s online activity hasn’t shifted significantly across Q3, the Philippines is seeing the largest jump in a positive direction. This is likely due to the need for HR professionals in certain booming sectors locally, such as IT, Telecom/ISP and BSFI industries, which are currently experiencing some growth.”

Singapore Highlights

• Online recruitment registered a -7% growth between September 2014 and 2015
• The Healthcare industry tops online hiring at 5% growth, while Consumer Goods/ FMCG, Food & Packaged Food, Home Appliance, Garments/ Textiles/ Leather, Gems & Jewellery sector fared the worst at -12%
• Healthcare jobs performed best with 5% growth, while Engineering/ Production roles saw the steepest decline at -11%

Malaysia Highlights

• Online hiring witnessed a -24% y-o-y decline between September 2014 and 2015.
• No industry sector saw positive growth in September. The Retail sector registered the least decline at -3%, while Oil and Gas saw the steepest decline at -25%
• Marketing & Communications job roles performed at 1%. Software, Hardware, Telecom roles saw the steepest decline at -35% year-over-year

Philippines Highlights

• The Philippines recorded a -16% y-o-y decline in online hiring in September 2015.
• The IT, Telecom/ ISP sector saw highest growth, while Production/Manufacturing, Automotive and Ancillary performed the worst

The Monster Employment Index is a monthly gauge of online job posting activity, based on a real-time review of millions of employer job opportunities culled from a large representative selection of career Web sites and online job listings across Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines.

The Index does not reflect the trend of any one advertiser or source, but is an aggregate measure of the change in job listings across the industry.

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