Saturday, January 7, 2012

Singapore and Hong Kong job market trends for 2012


Recruitment in Singapore and Hong Kong fell in the second half of 2012 and currently, there seems no reason to not believe that this will be the major trend for jobs market in 2012. While banks are very cautious for hiring, they are planning to reduce existing headcount. On the other hand, less people will be willing to change their position since being a new guy in a company can be quite dangerous in this job environment.

Normally, the months after Chinese New Year are the best times to look for a job since people get their bonuses, have their holidays before Chinese New Year and move to new jobs after it. But this year, even these months may be difficult to secure a new job because of the above reasons.

One particularly worrying trend for Singapore and Hong Kong is off-shoring. Singapore and Hong Kong became very expensive places to do business due to ultra high office rentals, higher salaries required to live in these cities and general increase in every day costs. It seems like financial IT will take a hit in the next few years but even analytical jobs may fly out of Singapore and Hong Kong:

"Off-shoring has been a hot topic in recent years, but I predict it will become even more prevalent in 2012,” says Nick Lambe, managing director, Morgan McKinley Hong Kong. Turbulence in global financial markets has made the majority of organisations extremely in the New Year and as a result, off-shoring will be a part of many firms’ resourcing strategies." 
Although process-orientated functions like IT and operations have traditionally been off-shored, banks will also target analytical jobs this year, such as product control. “This will therefore drive hiring within the project management and change space as banks look to strip out these functions and complete the off-shoring process,” adds Lambe."
Source :  A year to fear? Our five-point preview of the Asian job market in 2012
 Recently, Morgan Stanley has slashed 80 Singapore support staff and offered transfers to India and Hungary. Other banks have back-office relocation on their radars.

1 comment:

  1. In recession time, yes right it is not good to leave your job as easy as like that. But there is some fields are still in demand for man powering, like IT, marketing, and FNB.

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