Online hiring activity for roles in HR and administration are still on a decline across Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines. These findings are according to the latest Monster Employment Index (MEI) which records industries and occupations that show the highest and lowest growth in recruitment activity in various markets.

Human Resources and Administrative jobs in Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines are continuing to experience a drop in online hiring activity. However, activity in both Malaysia and the Philippines has seen a slight month-on-month improvement between July 2015 and August 2015.

In August 2015, HR and administrative jobs have continued to decline in Singapore, registering -12% year-over-year – a 3% decrease from the July year-over-year figures. HR roles in Malaysia have slightly improved since July, while Philippines’ HR jobs show the best month-on-month improvement, jumping from -42% in July to -21% in August.

Despite this negative growth, HR jobs in the Philippines was one of the highest growth occupations of all job roles monitored by the Index. In both Singapore and Malaysia, they were one of the lowest growth occupations.

HR & Admin jobs:

Despite an ongoing need for HR & Admin professionals in the region, the overall outlook remains bleak as these key markets navigate their way through changes in labour legislation and economic uncertainties.

“Singapore continues to experience a tight labour market and a decrease in the overall workforce, due in part to restrictions on foreign labour. This could be a reason for the decreasing movement and e-recruitment activity for HR & Admin roles,” said Sanjay Modi, Managing Director, Monster.com (India, Middle East, Southeast Asia and Hong Kong).

“Similarly in Malaysia, there is likely less of an urgent need for HR professionals until economic conditions improve – however, the banking industry is likely seeing an increase in the need for human capital management, as the BFSI sector experiences strong year-on-year growth.”

Enlisted below are country-wide trends of online hiring activity in Singapore, Malaysia and Philippines.

Singapore Highlights

• The MEI registered a decline of -10% year-over-year in August 2015, a slight decline from July’s -8% year-over-year growth.
• The Healthcare industry reported the least decline at -3% year-on-year, while the Government/PSU/Defence sector continues to see the greatest decline at -22%.
• Healthcare roles performed best with 6% growth, Hospitality & Travel still register the steepest fall at -21% year-over-year.

Malaysia Highlights

• Malaysia registered a -21% decline in online hiring between August 2014 and 2015.
• The BFSI industry saw the highest growth at 10%, while the Oil & Gas sector saw its steepest overall year-over-year decline at -34%
• Hospitality & Travel and Software, Hardware, Telecom jobs are tied as the occupations with the lowest growth at -25% year-on-year.

Philippines Highlights

• Online hiring activity in the Philippines slows down to -31% year-on-year.
• The IT, Telecom/ISP sector registers the most notable growth at 10%, while Production/Manufacturing, Automotive/Ancillary registers the lowest at -62%.
• Customer Service jobs had the most growth while Hospitality/Travel had the least.

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 websites 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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