Talent & Tech Asia Summit 2024
human resources online

Rise in demand for HR professionals in Malaysia

In a bid to stem the talent brain drain, companies in Malaysia have been tightening acquisition and retention policies with more flexible employee benefits.

This has led to a yearly growth of 43% in job advertising for HR professionals in the second quarter of the year, according to the Robert Walters Asia Job Index Q2 2015.

The survey tracked job advertising volumes for professional positions across the leading job boards and national newspapers in countries such as Malaysia and Singapore.

It found HR professionals such as compensation and benefits specialists, and talent management leaders were especially in demand in Malaysia from April to June 2015.

Overall, the country saw a 9% rise in annual growth of job advertisements - 2% lower than the whole of Asia.

"Employment in Malaysia saw a better Q2 after market apprehension around the GST implementation in April cooled off," said Sally Raj, Managing Director, Robert Walters Malaysia.

"We also saw increased recruitment activity within the shared services space among accounting and finance professionals, as many of them had clocked in two years’ work experience and felt it was time to explore other job opportunities."

The report also found the drive from multinationals to centralise purchasing functions in Malaysia fueled the demand for procurement professionals to achieve cost efficiency.

As a consequence, advertising for such roles grew by 24% annually.

Similar trends were also observed in Asia, with  recruitment advertising levels increasing year-on-year for core operating functions such as IT, accounting & finance and HR.

"The key emphasis across most industries was on streamlining their recruitment processes to secure the best professionals in the market as well as strengthening retention strategies to prevent losing top talent to competitors," the report stated.

It added advertising for IT roles in Asia grew the most by 26%, while HR stood at 3%.

Image: Shutterstock

 

Follow us on Telegram and on Instagram @humanresourcesonline for all the latest HR and manpower news from around the region!

Free newsletter

Get the daily lowdown on Asia's top Human Resources stories.

We break down the big and messy topics of the day so you're updated on the most important developments in Asia's Human Resources development – for free.

subscribe now open in new window