Zero annual growth in online hiring in February

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia recorded zero annual growth in online hiring between February 2016 and February 2017, according to the latest Monster Employment Index (MEI).
MEI is a gauge of online job posting activities compiled monthly by Monster.com and it records the industries and occupations that show the highest and lowest growth in recruitment activity locally.
The recent MEI indices have also suggested that Malaysia should experience a cautious job market in 2017, as businesses are expected to freeze head count across non-critical and support areas and step up recruitment in niche verticals.
For the month of February, the IT, telecom/ISP (Internet Service Provider) and BPO (Business Process Outsourcing)/ITES (IT enabled services) sectors recorded the most positive y-o-y growth of 31%. However, on a month-on-month (m-o-m) basis, it was down by 5% from 36% growth in January.
Meanwhile, the retail sector fared the lowest among all industries in online hiring, reporting a 22% dip in February 2017.
Looking at specific jobs in Malaysia – software, hardware, and telecom talent saw the strongest demand at 30%. This is also the group’s steepest growth recorded amongst other sectors. The job role continued to register double-digit positive growth for the fourth month in a row.
On the other hand, customer service professionals continued to fare the worst in online hiring, exhibiting a sharp 55% decline – plunging further from the 52% decline recorded in January 2017.
Monster.com managing director (Asia Pacific and Middle East) Sanjay Modi said the prevailing economic conditions calls for businesses to focus more on re-skilling existing employees and be more agile while implementing hiring strategies to stay competitive.
“Widening skill gaps is a growing concern due to which productivity is affected, which is critical because the rate of adoption of new technologies lies at the hands of those who are highly skilled,” he added.