Online hiring sentiment in the region’s HR and Admin sector continues to be sluggish, as South Asian employers slow the hiring process across support functions, amidst restructuring efforts.

This is according to the Monster Employment Index (MEI), a monthly gauge of online recruitment activity across Singapore, Malaysia and Philippines. The Index tracks overall online hiring activity locally, and include specific data points from the HR & Administrate job pool.

The Philippines dropped to -1%, a huge dip from 9% growth year-on-year reported last month in February. Malaysia reported a -13% decline in hiring of HR and admin professionals in March, falling from -8% year-on-year recorded in February, while Singapore also contracted further at -5% year-on-year.

HR & Admin jobs

“Support functions like HR and Admin are low in demand, given that organisations are either coping with change or affected by the ongoing turbulent market conditions. HR functions have increased their focus on transformational roles, along with talent across shared services and generalist HR roles, adopting new structures and technology systems, which will eventually make the whole HR system very lean,” said Sanjay Modi, Managing Director of Monster.com (APAC and Middle East).

“Moreover, salaries across the region are getting expensive, which makes businesses shift support staff elsewhere or opt for a contingent workforce. A strong sense of commercial acumen is a bonus for such candidates.”

See: Sluggish Online Hiring for HR and Admin Roles across Southeast Asia

See below trends across Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines for March 2017:

Singapore

• Singapore recedes one percent from the year-ago level. IT, Telecom/ISP and BPO/ITES register the most-notable annual growth among industry sectors.
• Advertising, Market Research, Public Relations, Media and Entertainment register the most notable decline.
• Software, Hardware, Telecom job roles witness the highest demand year-on-year.

Malaysia

• Malaysia declines shows 11% decline in online hiring for HR and admin roles on-the-year.
• Year-on-year, IT, Telecom/ISP and BPO/ITES exhibit the most-notable growth among sectors; whereas Retail registers the most-notable decline.
• Purchase/ Logistics/ Supply Chain professionals experience the highest growth in demand on annual basis.

Philippines

• Philippines registers growth of 8% between March 2016 and 2017.
• BPO/ITES leads among industry sectors and Engineering, Construction and Real Estate registers the steepest decline, from the year-ago level.
• Among job roles, online demand was most high among Customer Service professionals on-the-year.

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.

Also read: Future of HR: Predicting Top 10 Talent Trends in 2017