April 23, 2002
Singapore's Job Market Improving

A quarterly Asian Job Index Survey (JIS) released by TMP Worldwide, a recruitment agency whose portfolio include Monster.com, revealed an air of optimism amongst 700 decision-makers in Singapore-based multinational and local businesses.

The JIS for the second quarter 2002 shows that, like its Asia Pacific counterparts, Singapore is showing signs of an economic recovery. The net effect for permanent hiring across all industries this quarter is 28.1 percent - the highest recorded since Singapore felt the full impact of the global financial crisis in the second half of last year.

Net Effect is the result of subtracting the percentage of employers who indicated that they intend to decrease employment from the percentage of employers who indicated they intend to increase.

Leading the recovery are the Business/Professional (46.2 percent), Manufacturing/Construction (41.9 percent) and Logistics (37.5 percent) sectors.

"Businesses are buying into the government's new initiatives that aim to restructure Singapore's economy and remain competitive in a permanently altered international business climate," comments Gary Lazzarotto, director for TMP Worldwide in Southeast Asia. "The most outstanding finding of the survey is that across all industries, only 4.7 percent of the sectors surveyed are expecting to reduce headcount."

Troubled sectors include the Tourism/Travel with a -20 percent net effect, Internet/E-commerce (0 percent net effect) and Media/PR (5.5 percent net effect). Meanwhile, the Financial sector registered a positive net effect of 11.9 percent, a huge rebound after two quarters of negative hiring expectations.

The survey also showed that companies are expecting good and average industry performances for the second half of this year. 93.3 percent of companies expect good and average industry performance, up from 89.7 percent of respondents last quarter who felt their performance would be good/average in the first half of 2002.

"The optimism shown by Singapore businesses is balanced with the stark realization that Singapore's recovery very much depends on the global electronics industry, the war against terrorism and the US economy. And as global recovery comes into being, businesses in Singapore are embracing new strategies that will see them to full recovery," said Lazzarotto.

Singapore is part of the Asian JIS that analyses the opinions of more than 2,300 key decision-makers from all of the major industry sectors. Seven Asian countries were surveyed: China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore.

Japan and Singapore registered the highest increase in permanent hiring expectation at 10 percent and 14.9 percent respectively. Thailand and China experienced negative changes in net effect, although the latter continues to record a high (47.5 percent) permanent hiring expectation.

Across the region, all seven countries surveyed expect an industry performance that is average to good. China notably registered a positive correlation with its entry into the World Trade Organization and its expectation of increased permanent headcount.