Job ads down by 10% in Q411

Bankers had the most difficulty in hunting jobs.

According to the Robert Walters Asia Job Index, there was a seasonal dip in job advertisement levels in the last quarter of 2011 in the run up to the festive period and year-end budget reviews. Total job advertisements across the region fell by 3% from Q3 to Q4 2011.

The index tracks advertisement volumes for professional positions across the leading job boards and national newspapers in Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, China, Korea
and Japan.

In Singapore, Robert Walters said that contract hires increased toward year end.

Main findings include the following:

• There was a 10% decrease in job advertisement levels from Q3 to Q4 2011
• Companies chose to postpone job hiring until after the festive period
• The conservative global economic climate has led employers to increasingly look toward
hiring contract professionals in sectors such as HR and operations in order to reduce costs.
This tended to be done directly which resulted in a fall in job advertisements of 11% and 12%
for each respective sector
• Within the private sector, particularly within banking and finance, hiring continued to be weak
as many international banks made redundancies and imposed hiring freezes
• However, the increase in public sector projects looks set to fuel recruitment activity in the
coming months, particularly within construction and industry