Online hiring in Malaysia fell 8% in Q3

Online hiring activity in Malaysia fell by 8% in the third quarter, falling behind the performance from one year ago by 14%, according to the third quarterly Monster Employment Index (MEI) report. It said online recruitment in the country could not sustain the strong performance of the previous quarter, continuing a negative trajectory.

The report highlighted that Malaysia has still not recovered its economic position, despite a stronger performance in the previous quarter.

This Southeast Asia Q3 Online Recruitment Trends Report by Monster.com examines the hiring trends and performance of online recruitment, and offers a comprehensive overview of major industries across Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines.

It said top three job roles among occupations hiring freelancers online in Malaysia are sales & business development (16%), marketing & communications (8%), software, hardware, telcom (5%).

Among occupations, hospitality and travel recorded the strongest quarterly growth with 2%, while engineering and real estate soared 13% in a quarterly comparison.

The IT, telecom/internet service provider (ISP) and business process outsourcing (BPO)/IT enabled services (ITES) sector exhibited the strongest performance among industries throughout July, August and September in a year-on-year comparison, while the logistics and BFSI industries registered the weakest performance for the same period.

While general online hiring has been slowing in Malaysia in the third quarter, the IT, telecom/ISP and BPO/ITES sector recorded a 5% growth in the three-month period.

With Penang becoming an increasingly attractive hub for tech companies in Malaysia, the IT, telecom/ISP and BPO/ITES sector resumes the path that was set in the second quarter. In a year-on-year comparison, the sector even registered double-digit growth with 11%, 11% and 12% respectively – indicating a resilient industry despite political concerns.

This edition of the quarterly MEI took a closer look at the freelance economy and its online hiring demand across industries in Southeast Asia. With job scopes continuing to shift due to technological innovations, it is up to human resources leaders to define the way freelancers, part-timers and full- time staff collaborate and share their workload.