IT, O&G record strong growth in online hiring

KUALA LUMPUR: Information technology (IT), telecom/Internet service providers and the oil and gas (O&G) industry registered strong growth of 35 per cent and 16 per cent respectively in the last six months for online hiring.

Monster.Com chief executive officer for Asia Pacific and Middle East, Abhijeet Mukherjee said based on the Monster Employment Index, the customer services sector registered a six per cent year-on-year (y-o-y) growth in online hiring, followed by software, hardware, telecom professionals, up by three per cent.

“The IT and O&G sectors are two of nine industries that exhibited growth. These two sectors exhibited strong growth of 28 per cent and 16 per cent y-o-y,” he said in a statement yesterday.

However, other sectors such as banking, financial services and the insurance (BFSI) industry recorded a 12 per cent decline, while demand for sales and business development professionals also fell 10 per cent on a y-o-y basis in November.

Online hiring in the BFSI industry in Malaysia has been on an 11-month decline since the start of the year.

“According to research houses, macro policy uncertainty post election seems to be having a slight dampening effect on the banking’s sector growth, and analysts also expect core earnings growth to come in lower this year.

“The finance sector was once driven by human judgment and decision- making, but this is slowly changing with emerging technology, in particular intelligent automation,” Mukherjee said.

He said banks need to sharpen their focus to recruiting people with specific technology expertise.

“Developing a talent strategy that addresses widespread retraining, identifying the skills and expertise needed to compete in the future and attracting, retaining the right talent is important for the sector,” he added. — Bernama