Cooling job markets help temper C&B expectations

Singapore - Despite the rising unemployment rate, it isn't all bad news. In fact, the rising unemployment rate may even bode well for some HR practitioners, as it helps lower salary expectations.

According to the government, Singapore's unemployment rate was raised to 2.3% in April to June this year, increasing slightly higher than the previous 2%. But Lim Der Shing, director of JobsCentral thinks this unemployment rate is "historically low" and that companies which have allocated budgets for recruitment would "still need to hire".

Furthermore, Lim also sees bright spots in the horizon, especially in industries such as oil and gas and hospitality are still actively recruiting. "Even in banking and finance, certain firms such as HSBC and Standard Chartered are not that affected," he adds.

With JobCentral's largest pool of jobseekers falling into the mid to junior level positions, Lim says the cooling job market has resulted in young executives who are tampering their expectations of high salary increments, as opposed to the high salary expectations of last year. Attrition rates are likely to be lowered as well, especially since people are not likely to jobhop in a slowing job market.

"Most of them are sitting tight if they are happy, or okay with their jobs. But at the same time, there are still a lot of vacancies, so those who are unhappy or feel they are in the wrong place will still move."

So what do young executives really want? Lim says while C&B is "definitely still important", a recent JobsFactory survey found career opportunities and climbing up the career ladder to be most important to this demographic.

"For example, if you join an organisation and your general manager is 35, then you know this company really believes in promoting fast and promoting based on merit," he adds.