Online hiring continues to be on the downtrend

KUALA LUMPUR: Online hirings in Malaysia continued to be gloomy as Malaysia reported a 12% year-on-year decline in online hiring when comparing October 2015 to October 2016.

According to the Monster Employment Index (MEI), none of the domestic job sectors in Malaysia registered positive annual growth in online hiring. However, the production/ manufacturing, automotive and ancillary sector was the only sector that did not register a decline in online hiring, at zero percent change between October 2015 and 2016.

MEI also highlighted that the retail sector was the worst performer, having registered the steepest annual decline at 23%. 

In the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) industry, Malaysia saw the trend of declining online hiring in the fourth quarter from August to October 2016. In October, the industry’s online hirings dropped by a significant 15% when compared to online hirings in October 2015.

Despite the significant decline in online recruitments, when looked at specific jobs in Malaysia, sales and business development-related occupations continued to witness the strongest year-on-year demand at 20%. In contrast, customer service professionals fared the worst in online hiring in October, exhibiting a massive 55% annual decline.

Monster.com – APAC and Middle East managing director Sanjay Modi said: “Malaysia’s growth in the third quarter had been better than expected, driven by private consumption - a sign of the country’s domestic economic resilience. However, hiring activity remains sluggish as companies are still very wary of possible economic headwinds brought about by external factors.”
 
“On a positive note, the government is making great effort to get more foreign direct investments to come through into the nation to create better job opportunities,” he added. 

Regionally, online hirings in Singapore and the Philippines also appeared to be unexciting as both countries recorded no annual growth in overall online recruitment. However, if looked at the individual sectors, Singapore and the Philippines experienced positive growths in October 2016 within several sectors, unlike in Malaysia.

MEI is a monthly gauge of online job posting activity, based on a real-time review of millions of employer job opportunities culled from a large representative selection of career websites and online job listings across Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines. 

The index does not reflect the trend of any one advertiser or source, but is an aggregate measure of the change in job listings across the industry.