According to the Monster Employment Index, Malaysia reported no growth in online recruitment activity between February 2016 and 2017. The Retail sector saw the greatest decline in online recruitment at -22% year-on-year.

Amongst occupations, Software, Hardware, Telecom roles reported the steepest annual growth in hiring at 30% year-on-year, while Customer Service talent were the least in demand at -55% year-on-year.

Recording the most positive growth in hiring activity is the IT, Telecom/ISP and BPO/ITES sectors, with growth of 31% year-on-year. This annual growth momentum eased by five percentage points from January 2017, which registered 36% growth.

When looking at specific jobs in Malaysia, Software, Hardware, Telecom talent saw the strongest year-on-year demand at 30%. This is also the group’s steepest growth recorded amongst other sectors. The job role continued to register double-digit positive growth for the fourth month in a row.

Customer Service professionals continued to fare the worst in online hiring, exhibiting a sharp -55% annual decline, plunging further from the -52% annual decline recorded in January 2017.

See: 49% Employees in Malaysia Plan to Quit Jobs to Give a Shot at Entrepreneurship

“Automation and robotics are defining growth for most businesses and key industry verticals. Reflecting this trend, talent from the IT, Telecom/ISP and BPO/ITES will remain in high demand, coping with the ever-growing need for talent with niche skills. The MEI is in line with this drift. The prevailing economic condition calls for businesses to focus more on re-skilling existing employees and be more agile while implementing hiring strategies to stay competitive,” said Sanjay Modi, Managing Director, Monster.com – APAC and Middle East.

“Widening skill gaps is a growing concern due to which productivity is affected, which is critical because the rate of adoption of new technologies lies at the hands of those who are highly skilled. The recent MEI indices have suggested that Malaysia should experience a cautious job market in 2017, as businesses are expected to freeze head count, across non-critical and support areas and step up recruitment in niche verticals.”

The Monster Employment Index Malaysia 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 Malaysia. 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.

Also read: HRDF Launches its Strategic Initiative to Create 35% Skilled Malaysian Workforce by 2020

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