KUALA LUMPUR (Apr 28): Malaysia has raised its profile as a preferred regional hub, boasting one of the highest growth in job advertising volumes within the Asian region in the first quarter, a report revealed today.

In the Robert Walters Asia Job Index for the first quarter of 2015 (Q1 2015) which tracks job advertising volumes for professional positions across leading job boards and national newspapers in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia and Singapore, Malaysia ranked third after Japan and China with 15% growth in annual job advertisements.

Japan and China recorded a growth of 33% and 16% respectively, in annual job volumes from the first quarter of 2014 to Q1 2015.

South Korea was closely behind Malaysia, recording a 14% growth in annual job volumes while Hong Kong’s job volumes grew by 2% annually and Singapore recorded a 0.4% growth in job opportunities.

Robert Walters Malaysia managing director Sally Raj said Malaysia has enjoyed constant growth in the last five years, with significant progress seen predominantly within the shared services and the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sectors, thereby increasing job opportunities in supporting sectors.

“This has in turn created job opportunities for accounting, finance and information technology (IT) professionals,” she said.

“Existing firms have even expanded their Malaysian hubs from regional to global operations,” she added.

Sally said the current main challenges for businesses are largely external factors whereby the drop in oil prices has affected a number of companies in the industry, causing some companies to downsize its operations.

“In addition, many companies are adopting a ‘wait-and-see’ approach with regards to the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and to measure its impact along their supply chain and business operations,” she added.

However, Sally said market sentiments in Malaysia remain positive and employers are more committed to the long-term strategy of investing in talent.

The report said that job advertising in merchandising and purchasing grew a significant 75% from 2014, with the procurement function becoming increasingly critical as companies sought to achieve cost savings and economies of scale.

The report also stated that companies moved from generic job advertising towards specialist recruiters to attract professionals in areas of high demand.

“As a result, a 2% annual dip was reported in job advertising numbers for roles in legal and compliance,” the report read.

Healthy growth in FMCG firms led to a strong demand for branding and strategy professionals — pushing job advertising volumes for marketing roles up by 24% from 2014 while job advertising for positions within cloud computing and software development grew by 35% year on year, as firms continue to established their IT shared services in Malaysia.

Robert Walters is one of the world’s leading professional recruitment consultancies with offices in 24 countries and regions.