Job seekers cherry-picking

Singapore’s jobless rate has hit a three-year low, heating up competition for talent.

The overall unemployment rate fell from 2.2% in December 2010 to 1.9% in March this year, according to the latest figures from the Ministry of Manpower (MOM). The data also revealed more jobs than job seekers. There were 139 job openings for every 100 candidates in the first quarter of this year- numbers not seen since the pre-recessionary high in 2007. Job vacancies also rose by 17% over the quarter to 54,000 - the highest since March 2006 when MOM started collecting such data

This rosy outlook is encouraging job seekers to be more discerning in their search. “Currently, the talent market is a sellers’ market, where job-seekers are passively seeking better pay-packages, career development opportunities, and sometimes a career switch,” says Samantha Chia, Senior Vice President, Group Human Resource, DBS Bank. More effort is needed to convince new candidates, she adds.

Companies in the service industry appear to be most tightly squeezed in the current labour market, with jobs in this sector accounting for 31,600 or 73% of all vacancies in the first quarter of this year.

KH Security Agency is an example of a company that has been facing challenges in hiring new employees. With rising transport costs, some job seekers prefer to have assignments that are within five to ten minutes from their home, says Gary Haris, the agency’s senior business development manager. His agency is also looking at alternative ways to plug the talent gap, like attracting more female workers into the male-dominated industry. “We are also trying to do job sharing with 6-hour shifts instead of 12-hour shifts. However, it costs more to employ two officers in the place of one,” Haris tells HRM.

DBS Bank is reaching out to a diverse talent pool via career fairs such as E2i and mums@work, says Chia. The bank is also using innovative schemes such as the Active Neighbours Programme, to hire senior citizens and retirees to serve as service ambassadors in the bank on a part time basis.

Employees are also expecting higher salaries and better medical benefits, even when they do not have the relevant skills says Vincent Lim, Chief Executive officer, BH Global Marine. Foreign workers are no longer a viable solution as the firm has hit its quota and needs to hire three local workers for every foreign engineer that it recruits, he says.

Workforce productivity and talent management should be the top priorities for organisations, says Karin Clarke, Randstad Regional Director, Singapore and Malaysia. “To negate the tight labour market, companies need to provide staff with clear career progression opportunities, offer innovative reward and recognition programmes, and have forward-thinking retention practices.”

“We are also seeing the return of skills training and development, which is a particularly high priority for the Millennials generation. Striking the right balance between recruiting new talent and keeping existing talent motivated will be the key to driving sustainable business growth,” Clarke says.

BH Global Marine is looking at ways to encourage employees to stay for the long-haul. “We have a number of retention measures to reward employees who are able to stay with us on a long-term basis. These include long service awards, better medical benefits, career advancements, and training and development,” Lim says.