Thoughts? I am rather upbeat, might be looking to
switch jobs but is it the same for you guys too?
http://www.stjobs.sg/career-resources/hr-updates/singaporeans-upbeat-about-job-market/a/119807?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Post&utm_campaign=Social+Media
Singaporeans are now
more confident in the local job market than they were in the latter
half of last year, says a global workforce survey by
Singapore-based recruitment firm Berkley Group.
Of the 869 Singaporean
professionals polled, 64 per cent said they believed there were
enough or more than enough opportunities in the local job
market.
Just over a third (36
per cent) felt that the job market here was still weak - down 14
per cent from the third quarter last year, when Berkley last did
the survey.
The 36 per cent figure
is lower than the global average of 41 per cent.
Berkley Singapore chief
executive Steve Greenwood said the figures could be a reflection of
"the inherent resilience of the Singaporean worker".
But while the
respondents were upbeat about their individual prospects in the job
market here, they were less so about their companies'
prospects.
Some 27 per cent of
them thought their companies were faring worse than a year ago,
against a lower global average of 20 per cent.
A quarter of these
local professionals said they thought their companies were doing
better than a year ago, 10 per cent less than the global average.
Berkley suggested that this could be a sign that confidence in
corporate performances here is still lagging behind that in many
other countries.
Nevertheless, market
sentiments here still seem relatively positive: 68 per cent of the
respondents said the eurozone crisis was not affecting their
companies. Globally, the average is 53 per cent.
Mr Greenwood said:
"This suggests that, although it may be a competitive market, many
businesses in Singapore have been able to weather the economic
storm."
Berkley pointed out,
however, that employers could do more to build higher levels of job
security, which is slightly behind that of other countries. While
65 per cent of global participants said they were either not
worried or less worried about job security, only 59 per cent of
Singaporean respondents felt so.
Singapore Human
Resources Institute executive director David Ang told The Business
Times that employers here could take two steps to raise their
employees' job security:
Firstly, companies
should make forward-looking business projections and then
communicate these to their employees to convince them that the
business is viable.
Secondly, companies
should also practise good human resource management by actively
seeking to provide opportunities for career development, overseas
stints and job rotations to their employees.
Such moves foster a
greater sense of rootedness, and may be advised, given that three
quarters of the Singaporean professionals polled said they were
planning to move jobs in the next six months.
The figure was,
however, not much different from the 79 per cent from the last
survey.
This figure was also
high in India (also 75 per cent), the UAE (82 per cent) and
Malaysia (91 per cent); globally, only 58 per cent plan to change
jobs this year.
