Hudson reports high demand for marketing and PR professionals

Hong Kong - Permanent employment expectations for professionals in the media, PR and advertising sectors remain steady in Q2 2007 as compared to Q1, with 58% forecasting increased headcount, according to Hudson's Q2 survey for 2007.

Demand for marketing and PR professionals are growing with projected new hiring at 9%, reflecting a high level of hiring expectations underpinned by a positive economic environment.

The buoyant environment has led to the creations of many positions for media sales executives with much of the current recruitment activity focused on junior positions.

Other results reveal professionals in media, PR and advertising sectors had the highest proportion of respondents saying that stress levels are significantly higher (12%). This is due to the continuing strength of the economy creating a considerable amount of work making it extremely hard to meet increasingly tight deadlines.

Among the firms, 38% see the increased volume of work as the primary cause of stress while 18% mention a lack of support. Although the staff have traditionally worked long hours in this business, the current high level of activity is adding to employees' sense of stress.

As such, learning additional skills is encouraged by firms as one of the policies adopted to relieve and prevent work-related stress with many focusing on training existing staff rather than recruitment.

"Over the last year expectations to hire in this industry have seen a dramatic increase from 49% to 58% and this has been largely driven by the increase in client spending on campaigns. The roles that are most in demand are for client services, business development and good creatives and increasingly agencies are having to look outside of Hong Kong for this talent. However, hiring has been high for the last year and these levels of hiring could be hard to sustain for the next year", Aruna Alimchandani, sales and marketing manager for Hudson Hong Kong said.