Biggest trends affecting Singapore's recruitment market

Employers are seeking professionals such as Internal Auditors, Underwriters and Business Development Managers in Singapore, while candidate movement and the need to refill critical roles is impacting hiring decisions.

Singaporeans are entering the jobs market to find a new role, which is fuelling vacancy activity. The willingness of candidates to explore their options is a sign of their confidence that the jobs market can improve their prospects.

It may help you to know that while this vacancy activity is dominated by the need to replace critical departing staff, there have also been some new positions created in companies that are restructuring, moving functions into Singapore or expanding.

As a result overall vacancy activity is expected to increase this quarter. However, the challenge comes in the preference for local candidates. Employers prefer local Singaporeans due to tightening government visa regulations for foreigners. But given the shortage of local talent in many professional areas, demand will continue to outweigh supply.

Another trend impacting Singapore’s recruitment market is the increasing popularity of temporary and contract recruitment as organisations act to fill a skills gap quickly. Recruiting temporary or contract staff allows an employer to overcome headcount freezes if they exist in their organisation, and trial a candidate before offering them a permanent position.

In addition, the benefits offered by employers are becoming more in-line with permanent roles, which is attracting more candidates to temporary assignments. As a result, we will continue to see the effect of a maturing contract market as more companies increase their mix of temporary and contract workers.

In particular, we are seeing high demand for engineering and construction professionals because of the sheer number of projects underway or soon to commence. While a major construction project was recently placed on hold after the main contractor filed for bankruptcy, the immediate influx of available candidates was short-lived as new contractors were awarded within two months.

There is also an ongoing shortage of skilled and experienced professionals in Singapore’s insurance sector, and as a result employers are now much more willing to consider rehiring former employees.

While this is certainly not a common practice in other financial services businesses, the insurance industry is leading the way here.

We are still seeing high demand for tax professionals with indirect tax expertise. In most demand are candidates with a mix of both commercial and private practice experience, while regional experience and transfer pricing experience are also viewed favourably. 

Finally, in response to the shortage of local professionals, expatriates will be sought. These professionals will however be offered localised packages, which are lower than traditional expatriate packages.