Huge drop in online hiring

PETALING JAYA: E-recruitment has seen a huge drop based on figures released by Monster Employment Index (MEI) Malaysia.

Monster.com said online hiring witnessed a 24% year-on-year decline between September 2014 and 2015, dropping from -21% year-on-year in August, adding that no industry saw positive growth in online hiring activity in September.

“The retail sector registered the strongest growth at -3% year-on-year, while the oil and gas sector saw the steepest decline at -25%.

“Marketing and communications job roles performed best in September with one percent year-over-year growth. It is also the only job role that saw positive growth. Software, hardware, and telecom roles saw the steepest decline at -35% year-over-year,” Monster.com said.

The recruitment website said as economic conditions remained uncertain across Malaysia, e-recruitment has taken a tumble to a -24% yearover-year in September, this is a dip from the - 21% growth registered between August 2014 and 2015.

Monster.com pointed out that across the nine industries monitored by the Index, none of the sectors experienced any positive year-overyear growth.

It said software, hardware and telecom roles experienced the weakest growth between September 2014 and 2015 at -35% and this was followed closely by the sales and business development roles at -33% year-over-year.

Monster.com (India, Middle East, Southeast Asia, Hong Kong) managing director Sanjay Modi said the overall decline in the labour market was likely due to the negative economic outlook globally.

He said despite this, demands for sales and marketing roles, as well as customer service roles, will remain high due to the high turnover rates.

He added that with the growing popularity of digital banking and information technology, demand for talent in these tech-related roles is also likely to increase.