Slight improvement in marketing and comms job postings fails to mask ongoing decline
The number of online job postings for positions the media and advertising sector in Singapore fell a further five per cent in July, with marketing and communications jobs down eight per cent, latest figures from Monster.com have revealed.
The latter was in line with Singapore’s overall decline in e-recruitment activity, with the advertising, market research, PR, media and entertainment sectors falling faster than the average.
Despite the sluggish outlook, both were a relative improvement on the previous months declines of six per cent and 11 per cent respectively, according to the Monster Employment Index.
And of the 14 industries which form part of the report, advertising and media was the fifth most buoyant.
The education sector showed the steepest rise on online job postings of 2% year-on-year while Government, PSU and defence sector saw the heaviest fall, 19 per cent.
In Malaysia, the advertising and media sectors were down 19 per cent year-on-year, worse than the previous month’s 15 per cent but better than the average across all sectors of 26 per cent.
Marketing and communication roles fell nine per cent against the seven per cent previously.
The Philippines meanwhile was the most worrying of the three markets studied with jobs in the media and advertising category falling a whopping 42 per cent, which followed a 37 per cent fall in the last analysis, while marketing and communications roles were down 27 per cent, against 17 per cent previously.
Sanjay Modi, managing director, Monster.com India, Middle East, Southeast Asia, Hong Kong said: “This sector has experienced some ups and downs in recent months across the region, with the most stable market being Singapore – although this is still registering negative growth year-over-year.
“The Malaysia market has shown some improvement month-on-month for both the industry sector and job roles, while the Philippines has experienced the most rapid decline.”
He said the figures not only indicate a cautious effort of recruiters to hire, but a “shortage of qualified and skilled candidates in each of these markets for these more creative roles”.
“There still remains a mismatch in the demand for talent and the market supply, and this will likely remain a challenge within this industry,” he said.
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