Knowledge and understanding is the first step to building a strong career path. In order to help candidates navigate the job market, at the beginning of every year, Links prepares a Salary Snapshot detailing the trends and events within the Asia job market. As we’re entering into the end of Q2, we’ve put together a mid year market update on the job market in Asia. The aim, to give you the information so you can better advance your career.
This week, we are looking at the sales and marketing industry. In particular, we will be looking at the trends in the previous quarter, as well as insights and predictions for the for the rest of 2018. As a leading HR outsourcing and recruitment agency in Asia, our goal is to provide people with the tools to advance their career. If you are interested in learning more about our services, you may contact us via email at frontdesk@linksinternational.com, or simply jot down your enquiry here and one of our representatives will get in touch with you shortly.
Hong Kong
Job Vacancies & Hiring Intentions
In Hong Kong, there is a high demand in the professional services for candidates in the Marcomms sector. This includes a hot demand for content and digital roles. The driving force behind this is the increasing awareness by businesses of the necessity for companies to better appeal to potential clients. This includes the need to attract clients with insightful content in their native environment.
In the retail sector, companies are also looking to hire more retail sales and marketing roles. On the whole, the markets collaborative strategy to create a better O2O environment for consumers has led to a need for personnel in both digital and traditional marketing. Despite the active market, there has not been any significant changes in bonus payouts.
Market Climate & Predictions
So far, the retail industry was been more active compared to last year. Closely following the steps of the U.S., China is now the world’s second largest retail and consumer market. With such growing potential, many new brands and businesses have taken an interest in the Asian market. Consequently, Hong Kong, seen as the international hub and entry point into Asia, has attracted many who are looking to build a presence into the market.
Seeing the growing influence of mobile marketing and retail in the Asia market, we foresee high demands for candidates with strong digital experience. We predict that digitally focused candidates with bilingual capabilities will be greatly sought after for the remainder of 2018, and going into 2019.
Singapore
Job Vacancies & Hiring Intentions
A trend in the Singapore market seems to be the growing pursuit for work-life balance. More and more people are looking into working regular office hours. As a result, locals are gradually moving out of the retail industry. Seeing this movement in the job market, it has become more challenging for businesses to find local talents to fill non-executive sales positions for staff working at store-fronts. Hot roles in Singapore include Sales Associates, Store Managers, and Client Relationship Managers, which is seeing a shorter supply in the recent year.
Market Climate & Predictions
Due to the local climate for better working hours which is resulting in a lack of manpower, major fashion retailers in Singapore has been attentively hiring talent for shop front roles. As supply of candidates continue to diminish, struggling to meet the demands of businesses, the market will become more talent driven. Moving into the second half of 2018, we predict that brands will start thinking more about appealing internally to encourage more people to work for them on the ground level.
Want to get access to the best Sales & Marketing talents and jobs in Asia? Links is an award-winning recruitment agency, get in touch with us now to see how we can help you achieve your career goals.
If you’re looking for more insights into benchmark salaries in Asia, click below to receive our 2018 Asia Salary Snapshot.
