According to the recently released Monster Employment Index (MEI), Malaysia’s online hiring activity has experienced its steepest decline for the engineering, construction and real estate sectors at the start of Q2 2019. This is despite the overall annual growth in online hiring, which is currently set at a 7 per cent increase.
The MEI is a gauge of online job posting activity compiled monthly by Monster.com. It records the industries and occupations that show the highest and lowest growth in local recruitment activity.
As per the annual industry trends in Malaysia, eight out of nine industry sectors monitored by the Index showed positive annual growth.
In sectors such as IT, Telecom/ISP and BPO/ITES, online hiring activity was most notable among all the recorded industries between April 2018 and 2019; showing a 43 per cent increase. The sector has been witnessing double-digit annual growth since July 2018. The sector is also performing fairly well in the short term with 14 per cent three-month growth and an 8 per cent six-month growth.
E-recruitment activity for the retail sector in particular showed a significant boost for the second month, experiencing an increase of 26 per cent on an annual basis. However, growth momentum eased slightly between March and April 2019, recording a month-on-month decline of 2 per cent.
Oil and gas is one of the sectors that has seen some long term momentum with 16 per cent growth compared to April 2018. In the short term too, the sector witnessed an uptrend with 7 per cent month-on-month growth.
Of the nine job-roles monitored by the Index, six recorded positive annual growth. Demand for new skills and talents are also on the rise. Software, hardware and telecom in particular has seen a significant increase in demand for professionals, recording an uptrend of 41 per cent and witnessing double-digit growth of 32 per cent on a three-month basis, and 22 per cent on a six-month basis.
Customer service ranked among the top growth occupations, with a 10 per cent increase on-the-year. However, the growth rate eased between March and April 2019 by 6 per cent. On a month-on-month basis, the job role experienced growth of 5 per cent.
As mentioned previously, despite the overall good news for online hiring in these sectors, engineering/production, real estate recorded the steepest year-on-year decline of 6 per cent among occupation categories in April 2019.
“The Malaysian economy continues to expand at a steady and promising pace. The country’s main economic sectors are expected to record positive growth, with the service and manufacturing sectors projected to grow by 5.7 per cent and 4.8 per cent, respectively. After the significant increase in the first quarter, the second quarter should continue to exhibit positive growth”, said CEO of Monster.com – APAC and Middle East, Abhijeet Mukherjee.
