Singapore - most competitive IT industry in APAC

Singapore has sailed past Australia to become the most comepetitive economy in the Asia-Pacific in information technology(IT).

The results come from this year's edition of the Economist Intelligence Unit's IT Industry Competitiveness Index. The index benchmarks 66 economies on a series of indicators covering critical foundation areas for IT innovation, such as overall business environment, IT infrastructure and human capital.

• Singapore rose 6 places to become the third-most competitive IT market in the world


• Singapore achieved its third-place global ranking on the strength of its research-and-development environment, which is ranked fifth in the world


• Two thirds of the world's biggest 100 IT firms have a presence in Singapore


• Singapore also scored well because of its support for IT-industry development, where it is ranked 5th in the world


• Singapore was ranked 9th in the world and 2nd in the Asia-Pacific in 2009

Singapore banks still hiring, but cautiously, amid current gloom

Banks in Singapore say they will keep hiring staff despite the current gloom.

This is a breath of fresh air, amid the job cuts that have swept the United States and Europe in recent weeks. An estimated 50,000 jobs have so far been affected in banks such as Credit Suisse, HSBC, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland and Goldman Sachs.

As in 2008, banks worldwide are in the eye of the gathering financial storm.

However, despite their relatively upbeat outlook, banks here have added a caveat: Hiring in the next few months will be done more cautiously, in the light of the global economic uncertainties.

Source: Straits Time

Singapore's economy bounces back

There was a big sigh of relief for many Singaporeans as the economy expanded in the second quarter at its fastest rate in nearly 6 years.

Growth surpassed expectations, with a more than 20% rise from the previous quarter. All thanks to a surge in biomedical production.

Manufacturing is not exactly a huge part of Singapore's economy, but the island specialises in pharmaceuticals and high-end specialist manufacturing.

And increased demand for flu vaccines helped an already recession-proof sector to expand.

Exports, which are the real lifeblood of Singapore's economy, rose nearly 6% in May.

Shipments of raw materials such as iron ore are picking up. The reason, yet again, appears to be China.

The rest of the manufacturing sector is still struggling, however, and retail sales are still down. Domestic consumption is not picking up, so analysts say the worst may not be over yet.

- Mariko Oi, reporter, BBC Asia Business Report

Google to lay off 100 full-time recruiters!

Amidst all the fresh news of gloom and doom around the world and the enevitiable end result of job losses in the form of lay offs and retrenchment happening almost every day I just could not stop myself from mentioning Google specifically.

And thats because I've always been a big fan of Google and their innovative approach to anything they embark upon including their stringent and out-of-the-box recruitment process.

Having said that it was rather dissapointing to know of Google laying off 100 full-time employees that too their recruiters!

Google is known to have one of the most profitable business model and a mean reputation of technology industry's most resilient companies and that raise a question in my mind.

When such entity like Google are necessitated to resort to laying off workers, who else can remain isolated and safe from being layed off?

***

Impact of Recession on Search Firms – Singapore context

Disclaimer: This is a personal weblog. The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer - Joe Neitham

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Economic slow down, Financial Tsunami, down turn, recession, call it what you like but we seems to be heading for a definite period of persistent rise in uncertainties in the days ahead. We are experiencing what some would even call the worst recession since the Great Depression and the similarities between the Great Depression and the current recession aka Credit Crunch recession are very similar. Much like the credit crunch today, the Great Depression began with a stock market crash and the eventual meltdown of the financial system. The bad news for us is that the current recession is not over yet by anyone’s imagination and the longer the recession prolonged the closer we are to a state of deep and painful depression.

From recruitment perspective, recession does have direct consequences on recruitment plans and the severity of the recession dictates the surge or decline in recruitment activities. We are today probably experiencing the half way point of recession as it is expected to prolong till 2013 as seen from surveys around the globe.

As such, measures taken by different organisation across varied industry, in preparation for the bad times to come, ranges from the mild to the drastic – pay cut, hiring freeze, lay offs and retrenchment are the buzz words today.

Here at home in Singapore we’ve seen and heard of organisation such as CLSA resorting to pay cuts in order to avoid retrenching their staff and in most financial institutions we are seeing hiring freeze (at least in most part of the business) as the norm of the day such as JPMorgan, Credit Suisse, Standard Chartered Bank, etc. Retrenchment as the last resort is underway at DBS (Nov 14, 2008 The Straits Times), Citibank (Nov 19, 2008 Biz Times), HSBC (Wall Street Journal - Nov 17, 2008), Merrill Lynch (Oct 22, 2008 The Straits Times), UBS (Oct 22, 2008 The Straits Times), Standard Chartered Bank (Oct 29, 2008 The Straits Times). I have a feeling that we’ve not seen the last of such retrenchment activities in the banks as mentioned above and some of these banks will continue the next round of lay offs soon if not in the immediate future.

Outside of banks, some of the organisation that has taken lay offs route are Motorola, Nokia, GAP, NOL, AIA, IM Flash Tech., YKK, Allied Technologies Ltd. The list is expected to grow as many organisation need to resort to trimming their staff strength in order to sustain.

In the midst of all the doom and glooms around it is still heartening to know that organisations here such as Singtel and NTUC are declaring not to resort to lay offs, while banks like Barclays, Standard Chartered bank, and ANZ are still hiring actively if not aggressively.

Types of search firms

The past few days I’ve been meeting up with few recruitment consultants and I guess their interpretation of the current recruitment scene varies from one to the other and that’s purely because of the space in which they operate. Typically we have the following types of search firms here in Singapore –

Executive Search Firms: These are the true search firms where they only take on retained search. Typical search firm will have a strong Research team with strong market mapping capabilities and they do not have any particular industry that they limit themselves to but on roles – only senior management level. Some of the leading search firms in Singapore are -
· Egon Zehnder

· Spencer Stuart
· Amrop Hever Group
· Heidrick & Struggles
· Russell Reynolds

Recruitment Consulting Firms (Hybrid – Contingency/Retainer): These are firms that are strong on contingency however most will also take on 10%-20% retainer jobs. Consultants here are strong on end-to-end consulting and 2-5 consultants will share 1-3 researcher (only name generation and market mapping) and in some cases resourcers (Identify and shortlist candidates – email/phone/face-to-face). Focus on middle to senior level candidates. Some of them are -
· Talent2
· Hudson
· Robert Walters
· Derwent
· Korn Ferry

Recruitment Agency (Contingency - Contract/Perm): These are agencies that are typically focused on verticals and most of them are in Information Technology. Traditionally they only do contracting where they outsource engineers to client site and manage their payrolls. Lately, few of these agencies do not wish to miss out on the lucrative contingency business so they have dedicated consultants that only do permanent placements. In such places, often they will have dedicated Sales/Business Development (client facing) team that are supported by strong Resourcers in the back office. Some of the leading agencies are –
· A-IT
· Optimum
· Comtel
· Emerio

Trends in recruitment process

Recruitment Outsourcing:

In the past 2 years alone we have seen a rapid growth in recruitment outsourcing, also known as HRO(Human Resource Outsourcing), RPO (Recruitment Process Outsourcing), TAM (Talent Acquisition Management), etc and basically to quote the Recruitment Process Outsourcing Association

, "Recruitment Process Outsourcing is when a provider acts as a company's internal recruitment function for a portion or all of its jobs. RPO providers manage the entire recruiting/hiring process from job profiling through the on-boarding of the new hire, including staff, technology, method and reporting. A properly managed RPO will improve a company's time to hire, increase the quality of the candidate pool, provide verifiable metrics, reduce cost and improve governmental compliance.”

Some of the organisation that are outsourcing their recruitment functions in Singapore are –
· Credit Suisse to Alexander Mann Solutions
· Barclays to Resource Solutions/Robert Walters -
· Deutsche bank to Alexander Mann Solutions
· UBS to Talent2
· Merrill Lynch to Talent2

Corporate/In-house Recruiters:
For sometime now we’ve had HR folks taking on recruitment as a sub function and unfortunately these does not work well when you are recruiting in volumes. Some of the banks in Singapore that are increasingly relying on in-house recruiters are – ANZ, JPMorgan, Standard Chartered Bank, RBS, etc. Most of these in-house recruiters are from search background with many years of end-to-end recruitment experience under their belts. Obviously, they know what they are doing and they will definitely give some their vendors a run for their money.

Talent management solutions:
Most of the big banks here these days have implemented Talent management solutions in the recruitment process. Some of the leading solutions that are in used here are -

· Taleo (Clients: ANZ, Credit Suisse, JPMC),

· Brassring (Client: UBS),

· Recruitmax (Client: Barclays),

· JobsDB Dimension (Client: SCB).

Preferred Supplier Panel:

Gone are the days when banks will utilise the services of any and every recruitment firms out there. These days’ banks are more selective with whom they want to associate themselves and whose service they would like to avail. Thus was born the Preferred Supplier List or Panel, where out of maybe 70-90 firms only 10-20 are short listed to be included in the panel. Every in-house recruiter as well as the hiring managers is generally mandate to only use those agencies that are in the list.

Banks that uses Talent Management Solutions invariably will have their preferred supplier list and the system will not allow you to submit resumes if you are not in the panel as a registered user.

The future of recruitment industry

As more and more organisation engage on developing their own in-house resource capabilities their focus then will be to hire directly and reduce dependencies on headhunters/recruitment agencies in the long run. Today many in-house recruiters are well equipped and trained on direct sourcing through different mediums for both active and passive candidates – Networking tools(LinkedIn, Facebook, Zoominfo etc), Job site Database search (eFinancialcareers, Monster, etc), Googling (using Boolean strings), etc. What this translates to is substantial lost of requirements for recruitment agencies. The future of recruitment industry therefore will be decided by those firms/agencies that are willing to evolve and adapt to the changing demands of the industry. Added to this, recession will result in the number of jobs being drastically reduced and everyone therefore will be forced to fight for the few jobs that are available and survival will very much depend on getting those few available jobs from the client and filling them.

- Agencies will have reduced job sheets: Fewer jobs due to recession and those that remains most of them will be filled by in-house recruiters. Only hard-to-fill niche or senior roles will be given to agencies.
- Agency to focus on building strong search capabilities: To fill those hard-to-fill niche or senior roles agencies must equip themselves with strong search capability to beat the fierce competition and stand out from the rest.
- Smaller/boutique agencies driven out of business: In the interim smaller agencies who are without any serious requirements will be left out, eventually they will have to close shop due to lack of funds. However, those smaller agencies that are focus on contracting with more than 50 contractors will survive at least for the period when the contract still runs.
- Only the big boys with strong capital reserves will survive: The big Recruitment Consulting firms with diverse portfolio will survive and ride out this rough patch as they are not dependent only on few particular clients in particular industry/sector.
- Strong relationship + strong delivery capability will thrive: In the end, it all boils down to the depth of ones relationship with clients because relationship will help in requirements coming to you. However, relationship alone does not suffice and what will set a survivor apart from the rest will be the strength in their delivery capability – high percentage of successful job filled against number of jobs.

Is your firm geared up and prepared for the long haul and ready to ride out the recession? What plans of actions are being put in place not only to survive but excel in these challenging times?

Should the negative trends continue for the next two quarters number of consultants will find themselves in the deficit from which recovery will be a difficult task. I believe that this will eventually result in many consultants losing their jobs sometime during the end of 2nd and beginning of 3rd quarter of 2009 and many cowboy agencies will also be force out of business. So how each companies responds to these new economic conditions will ultimately “separate the wheat from the chaff”.

On the bright side, experience and big billing consultants will not only survive but continue to do well and for them pots of gold waits at the rainbow’s end and this is what we know as “survival of the fittest”.

PS: Feel free to share with everyone your thoughts and take on this topic by leaving your comments here or you may write in to me confidentially at neitham(at)gmail(dot)com.

***Happy hunting folks***

Firms hiring continues despite potential recession

Companies in Singapore are not putting their hiring plans on hold despite recession threats. According to the Achieve Report on Hiring Trends 2H 2008, 76% of employers did not expect a change in hiring activity in the wake of the recession. Of the 24% of respondents who foresaw a change in hiring activity, 11% stated they would reduce hiring, 10% would freeze employment and 3% would retrench workers. Among the sectors, the retail, hospitality and finance industries were the most confident about the potential recession.

The good news is that 73% of finance firms planned to stick to their intended hiring plans.

Hay Group Global Study Finds 33% of Asian Companies Poised to Freeze Salaries in Preparation for the Slowing Economy

Singapore, April 2, 2008: The majority of companies in Asia have not fully felt the impact of the current economic events with only 8% of them not confident of hitting their business targets, compared to 16% globally. However, they are bracing themselves to be affected sometime in the near future, according to a new global study released today, which spanned 1,003 companies in 80 countries. According to Hay Group, the global consulting firm that conducted the study, more than 41% of companies in Asia are freezing or considering freezing base salaries.

“Even more alarming, 33% of Asian organizations (compared to 15% globally) reported that they were freezing salaries for all employees,” said Charlotte Park, Managing Director of Reward Information Services, Asia, Hay Group. “Short of layoffs or salary cuts, this is as serious as you can get in terms of sending out distress signals.”

In addition, the study found that 81% of organizations will be freezing or decreasing staffing levels in the near future. That said, when companies were asked about their primary concerns regarding engaging and retaining key employees during challenging economic periods, they identified retaining and motivating their key contributors as their number one concern – 48% of companies indicated that they have either made changes or are making changes to their retention programs for high-performers.

“An analysis of the forecast for next quarter, coupled with the impact of this report, could be the catalyst for much more serious economic measures,” said Park.

Other notable findings include:
 Employer-provided benefits are being put under the microscope, especially when it comes to healthcare – 27% report they have either made changes or are making changes to healthcare benefits.
 21% of respondents indicated that they either have changes implemented or planned for retirement/pension benefits
 44% of respondents indicated that they have changes implemented or planned for training and development programs

How Asian employers stack up globally

In general, employers in Asia are taking a more cautious approach than their global counterparts in preparing for an anticipated economic slowdown: (Table 1).

	Asia	Global
Not confident of meeting business targets for 2008	8%	16%
Considering freezing or are freezing salaries for 2008	33%	15%
Freezing or decreasing headcount in 2008	81%	20%
Making or planning changes to healthcare benefits	27%	34%
Making or planning changes for retirement and pension plans	21%	18%
Making or planning changes for training and development programs	44%	38%

Rosy outlook for Singapore job market in 2008

Against the backdrop of the US credit crunch and its ripple effect through out most of the financial capitals of the world the outlook of most companies here in Singapore viz-a-viz hiring remains very positive.

The above observation is based on the surveys conducted by various agencies for the 1st quarter of 2008.

As per the Hudson Report Q1 2008, 51% Singapore companies planned to increase their workforce.

The report also goes to say that despite the current credit crunch, the impact is low on recruitment plans across all markets surveyed, including Banking and Finance.

I am sure most of us, at some point or the other was worried about the possibility of US recession having a drastic effect on the market here in Asia. Honestly, I still fear that the US will go into recession and all of us including Singapore will be eventually effected. But after reading what MM Lee has to say on this subject, my fears upto a degree is gone.

Speaking to some 1,200 people at the Tanjong Pagar Lunar New Year dinner on Monday night, Mr Lee said Singapore is at the centre of the world's highest growth region, and is in a period of steady growth. "This is quite remarkable, for it will be the first time that when the American economy slows down and reduce imports from Asia, Asia will not go into recession."

What was remarkable about this great man and his insights was soon evident when he continued to point out that the US recession help the Singapore booming real estate market to cool down and this inturn did not result in Asia going through another financial crisis like the one in 1997.

Most of the banks did not stop hiring in Q4 of 2007 and the hiring trend seems to continue at the same pace in Q1 of 2008 and I am confident that this trend will continue for most part of this year.

This is the year of the rat - a time for renewal, hard work and a fresh start.

Hopefully, all the subprime mortgage crisis and the write downs can all be put behind and everyone will start a fresh and rebuild all that was lost.

This might just be a wishful thinking but I choose to remain positive and think only of good things for the year ahead.

And here's wishing happy hunting and clean closures to all my fellow recruiters in Singapore and across the world!

:: Singapore's booming economy creates recored number of jobs

Singapore's booming economy saw a record growth of 61,900 jobs in the last three months with unemployment at a six-year low of 2.4% in June.

The preliminary findings from Ministry of Manpower (MOM) also found employment growth in all sectors.

Stimulating the job growth is the rapidly expanding economy which exceeded all expectations in the last quarter.

Experts here observed that the economy is steady enough to survive even the weakeding US economy and decreased demand for electronics.

Source: HRM Issue 7.8




Find thousands of Bilingual jobs at LatPro.com.

:: Boom in Singapore IT market – more jobs and higher pay checks!

As per the survey conducted by Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) - a rebound in the IT market in the later half of the year is expected. This is in line with the survey conducted by Manpower - which conducted a polled recently and found that over 55% of the employers said they would step up hiring in the April-June months.

The Manpower report also found that of all the 27 countries covered in the survey the Net Employment Outlook for Singapore at 53% has the brightest job prospects for the next three months, even outshining India which is at 31%.

Singapore’s economy is set to grow at 5.4 percent this year an increase from the 5.2 percent predicted in the last survey in December.

A certain feeling of positive outlook for a bullish market is felt all around for the year 2007. This ripple effect of the current good economy outlook is being felt especially in the job market.

A new and positive trend is being felt and echoed by most search firms here that 2007 will be a good year for IT boom. As more and more MNCs set up their operation here or augment their staff strength, especially amongst the investment banks, the market definitely is looking good for those who are in banking and finance sector.

According to Roger Olofsson, associate director Robert Walters as quoted in The Straits Times, IT workers can comprise up to 30 percent of the entire staff of a large MNC investment bank.

This is because of the fact that most investment banks in Singapore have segmented a large chunk of their resources to providing support to the existing applications and users and traders spread across the globe. Most of these activities used to be operated out of their office in New York or London or even Zurich.

Robert Walters also reported sharp increases in salaries in Singapore’s tech industry. These increases range from about $10,000 a year for a business solutions architect to about $100,000 a year for a chief information officer, compared to figures in 2003.

The last 2 year has seen a sharp rise in the number of IT workers coming to Singapore to join one of the investment banks here. This influx is also felt very severely in the areas of real estate. Especially in areas like Simei, Tanah Merah, Tampines and even Bedok the rental has grown to 10-30% for both HDB flats and condominiums. These areas are being preferred by many IT workers due to the fact that Changi Business Park (CBP) is situated near Singapore Expo which is at a close proximity to the above addresses.

In fact landlords these days insist on not only increasing the rental but letting out the flat to only those who are willing to sign a lease agreement for a minimum of 2 years. Fast forwarding to 2007, the scene is much worst with the real estate boom which is almost comparable to the economy boom of the early 90’s with expats willing to shell out 4k for a condominium accommodation.

Singapore is truly experiencing what to me is the beginning of good time and for most search firms here the pie is getting bigger and everyone is expected to have a share of the pie; the size and the amount of the pie largely depends on how well you position your organization in identifying and capitalizing on your core strength.

The Hudson report, Q1 2007, Singapore – Employment and HR Trends.

“Employment expectations are rising and companies express a high level of optimism about future performance. But the other side of the coin is severe competition for staff. Companies recognise they must be prepared to look at the ackages they offer which would now include significant increases in salaries and bonuses in order to attract appropriately talented individuals.” Mark Sparrow, Country Manager, Hudson, Singapore.

The Hudson Report (January-March 2007) is a quarterly survey on the hiring expectations across the industry in Asia (Japan, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore). These surveys are conducted by Hudson consultants amongst the executives from multi-national firms. Some of the key findings within the IT and Telecommunications industry in Singapore is given below:

• Permanent employment expectations: 56% of respondents are expecting to hire more staff in Q1 but an imminent surge is expected as usual in Q2, after detailed planning for the year during the 1st quarter.
• Permanent employment expectations by job roles: Demand for IT professionals is high at 17%, second to Sales jobs which is at 23%. Banking IT specialists are much sought after as more banks are setting up new operations or upgrading existing operations.
• Pay increases to attract managerial staff: 57% say they will pay more than 10%, compared to 35% in Q1 2006. Banks however are expected to pay by far the highest increase, with 78% saying the salaries will rise by ore than 10%.
• Year-end bonus payments: 51% of respondents plan to pay bonuses of more than 10%. Steep rise from 32% in Q1 2006. Banking sector again is making by far the highest bonus payments, with 76% planning to pay more than 10%.
• Staff turnover: 37% of IT&T companies are experiencing turnover of more than 10%.
• Reasons for staff turnover: Poaching is the most significant cause for staff turnover with 30% of the respondents attributing the turnover due to poaching. 10% of the respondents in IT&T, which is significantly higher than any other sector agree that ‘Low staff morale’ is also a very significant reason for staff turnover.

The year 2007 from staffing perspective is expected to be as buoyant as the Singapore economy outlook. Banking and IT are two sectors which will see a significant increase in resource augmentation and this is no surprise considering the number of banking institutions that are already/in-process/on the verge of setting up new/refurbishments/upgrade of operations and data centers.

As competition for quality resources heats up amongst the banks here, a major resource crunch is expected and banks and their recruiting partners will have to progressively look at ways to source and import talent from outside Singapore.

This means that further improvement in salary payouts will have to be implemented in order to attract, recruit and retain quality talents from location such as India and Hong Kong.

Of late, we are seeing a reversal in recruiting trend as far as India is concern – companies in India are looking to recruit from outside India. One of India’s largest Software Development company is in the process of luring back Non-resident-Indian IT pros for middle and senior roles for their projects in India and so are most of the MNC banks in India who are facing stiff challenges in recruiting senior level consultants. We are also seeing specialist recruitment firm such as Job options which is founded and managed by Mr. Achyut Menon. In his own words - “I am pretty convinced that 'global migration' of professionals will be a reality soon, and so it is better to dig ones wells..before one is thirsty!!”. He is of course referring to returning Indian professionals.

This obviously means that companies in India are prepared to match the consultant earnings abroad - dollars to dollars. This will also mean that they are willing to pay the talents within in India which will match their potential earning abroad in order to retain them. This trend is especially prevalent in the banking sector; with so many banks moving their back office support offshore to India this seems to be the obvious.

It therefore, does become necessary for IT&T and banking companies in Singapore to pro-actively look into their existing salary standards and make necessary changes and sacrifices to remain competitive in the fight for quality talents in this part of the world.

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***Happy hunting folks!***

53% of Singaporeans happy in their jobs.

More than half of Singaporean employees are happy in their work and they believe the quality of their bosses is getting better. (Source: HRM Issue 6.12)

Why do I get this feeling that this statistic could be attributed to the better than expected performance of Singapore economy and the higher bonus payouts thereof?

The survey was conducted by Kelly Services and those Singaporeans most happy in their jobs were in Education (62%), Business Services (57%), Financial Services (56%), Engineering (53%) and IT (50%).

This result also means that half the IT crowds are not happy with their job and the rest are happy. It might actually be more worst than what is actually being indicated here because IT industry as compared to any other industry is more dynamic, with more job opportunities, and attrition rates are therefore higher than other sectors.

And for the IT pros under such challenging circumstances chances are that you will have more IT pros that are not happy with their current jobs than those who are happy.

*** Happy Hunting Folks!***

Recruitment Services Company of the year 2006 - Singapore.

As per the survey conducted by HumanResources magazine in a special annual edition title HR Vendors of the year - voted by HR professionals the top ten Recruitment Services Company of the year 2006 are listed as below:

Rank / Company
1. Kelly Services

2. Hudson Global Resources
3. Adecco Personnel
4. Michael Page International
5. Robert Walters
6. GMP Recruitment
7. Recruit Express
8. Manpower Staffing Services
9. Drake International
10. Korn/Ferry International

Singapore economy for the year 2006 is expected to surpassed all predictions if we are to go by the percentage of economic growth in 3rd quarter 2006 which stands at 7.1%. The economy outlook for the year 2007 therefore also looks very promising. With the booming economy the recruitment business is also expected to experience booming business in the coming years.
Of late, we've also seen the increased acitivities of the various financial institutes either setting up new operations or refurbishing existing infrastructure here in Singapore and thereby increasing on their headcounts. As a result of which competition for quality technical resources are getting fiercer and more and more recruitment services company are compeld to scout for resources outside of Singapore.
This fierce competition for talents also resulted in mushrooming new recrutiment services company and while the likes of Kelly Services will continue to hold thier position in the top by offering various niche services to their clients we can also expect to see new faces in the year 2007 and two such players are Talent2 and Charterhouse Partnership.

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***Happy hunting folks!***