Online hiring sentiment across Southeast Asia’s HR and Admin sector remains slow with few signs of growth, as Singapore, Philippines and Malaysia markets monitored by the latest Monster Employment Index (MEI) reported a decline.

Malaysia saw the greatest decline in the online hiring of HR & Admin professionals in April, at -11% year-on-years. This is up 2% from -13% recorded between March 2016 and 2017.  Both Singapore and Philippines witnessed a 6% year-on-year decline in online hiring of the HR and Admin professionals.

HR & Admin jobs

See: Online Hiring of HR and Admin Professionals Drops Further Across Southeast Asia

“With the rise of workforce and recruitment technology, and an increasing budget allocated towards HR tech within companies, select HR and Admin roles are slowly getting replaced across business functions. But while such automation drives efficiency, productivity and optimisation within company HR functions, HR is still very much a human-driven role and there are aspects, including employee engagement, which cannot be replaced by AI or automation. Growth in online hiring is likely to remain slow, but unlikely to come to a halt,” said Sanjay Modi, Managing Director of Monster.com (APAC and Middle East).

Singapore Highlights

• Singapore registers negative growth of one percent on-the-year.
• Among industries, IT, Telecom/ISP and BPO/ITES leads online hiring activity; whereas Government/ PSU/ Defence plummets the most on an annual basis.
• Software, Hardware, Telecom professionals witness the highest job demand year-on-year.

Malaysia Highlights

• Malaysia declines 11 percent year-on-year.
• Among sectors, IT, Telecom/ISP and BPO/ITES leads online recruitment activity; whereas, Retail registers the most-notable decline on-the-year.
• Among job roles, Sales and Business Development registered the most-notable annual growth in demand.

Philippines Highlights

• Year-on-year, Philippines witnessed seven percent growth.
• Retail exhibits the most-notable growth among industry sectors; whereas, Engineering, Construction and Real Estate plunges the most on-the-year.
• Customer Service professionals recorded the most-notable demand from the year-ago level.

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: IE Singapore Unveils Initiatives to Build Larger Talent Pool of Singaporeans Able to Work in India and Southeast Asia

Feature image credit: freedigitalphotos.net