Online hiring across Southeast Asia’s IT space continues to witness moderate growth in May 2016. However, despite this marginal increase in activity, demands for software, hardware and telecom professionals remain weak, according to the latest round of Monster Employment Index (MEI) data.
The Philippines exhibited a 9% year-over-year growth in hiring activities in the IT, Telecom/ ISP and BPO/ITES industry – falling 2% from the 11% annual growth recorded in April. It is once again the strongest out of the three markets – Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore.
Annual hiring in Singapore remained the same as April, reporting 1% year-over-year growth. Despite the stagnant growth, month-on-month hiring has seen a moderate improvement of 3%.
Malaysia once again exhibited the weakest hiring activity, reporting a -1% decline year-over-year. This is a 10% improvement from -11% reported between April 2015 and 2016.
When looking at the demands for software, hardware and Telecom roles, none of the markets reported positive growth in hiring activities between May 2015 and 2016. Malaysia reported the steepest decline with a -29% year-over-year drop. Both Singapore and the Philippines registered -3% year-over-year decline in hiring of the Hardware, Software and Telecom professionals.
“As digital strategy grows to become the forefront of business and customer strategy, digital transformation will remain a constant across organisations,” said Sanjay Modi, Managing Director, Monster.com – APAC and Middle East. “Business owners need to be agile enough to embrace this disruption and be ready to re-align their HR strategies accordingly to maintain productivity. This means bringing onboard skilled IT talent and leaders who understand disruptive technology and are capable of helping organisations remain competitive in this space.”