Executive hiring in Asia deteriorates

HONG KONG — Job openings for executives in Asia have decreased, particularly in Japan, and are at their lowest level in Ho ng Kong since the Asian financial crisis as employers see little prospect of a quick rebound in business, a survey showed on Thursday.

Even in China, where there is a shortage of executive talent, the survey showed a surge in the number of companies planning to cut staff.

The survey by recruitment firm Hudson showed that a quarter of Japanese employers plan to cut staff this quarter while only 22 percent plan to hire, compared with 31 percent who were ready to hire in a similar survey three months ago.

In Hong Kong, 22 percent of employers said they would reduce headcount this quarter and just 14 percent plan to hire — the lowest since the survey’s launch in the fourth quarter of 1998, when Asia was reeling from a regional financial crisis.

As a financial and trading center, Hong Kong is being hit doubly hard by the global banking crisis and economic downturn and some jobs have already been cut at investment banks as part of global reductions in headcount.

The survey covers four markets — Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and China (Beijing and Shanghai) — all of which have seen exports plunge in recent as key markets in the West fell into recession.

Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore are in recession and analysts say they are unlikely to rebound until the US economy shows signs of recovery.

Analysts say China will be hard pushed to meet its 8.0 percent growth target this year, its lowest growth in a decade, and the survey showed that 21 percent of firms there plan to cut staff in the next three months, up from 8.0 percent in the previous survey.

That was partly offset by 30 percent of firms in China saying they would be hiring this quarter.

Hiring expectations in Singapore, already low, fell less sharply than in previous quarters as 20 percent of employers said they would add staff, compared with 23 percent in the previous survey. However, 19 percent of respondents said they would reduce headcount, up from 12 percent in the previous survey.

Job prospects are particularly weak in banking and financial services across the region.

Opportunities are better for executives seeking work at technology infrastructure, mobile telecoms and enterprise software companies in Japan and companies in healthcare and life sciences in Singapore, the survey said.

The quarterly survey by Chicago-based Hudson Highland Group Inc. covered responses from nearly 3,000 managers at multinational firms across industries in the four markets.–Susan Fenton, Reuters