Hong Kong still recruiting top talent despite market concerns

And HR job advertising has grown significantly.

It has been noted that HR job advertising in Hong Kong grew a significant 48% from Q1 2015 as companies sought to take previously outsourced functions back inhouse.

According to a report from Robert Walters, its Asia Job Index Q1 2016 says this led to a strong demand for HR professionals in areas such as recruitment, training and development.

Further, legal and compliance job advertising saw annual growth of 28% as banks continued to grow their compliance functions and buy-side firms continued to develop their internal compliance capability due to increasing regulatory pressure.

IT professionals remained in demand with a 19% year-on-year increase in the number of job advertisements. The market remained candidate-short, particularly for
professionals with experience in growth areas such as FinTech, e-commerce and IT security.

Here's more from Robert Walters:

Matthew Bennett, Managing Director for Greater China says: "Compared to a relatively steady job market in the first half of 2015, companies were more active in hiring in Q1 2016 and this led to the healthy year-on-year growth in the number of job advertisements. Despite the slowdown in certain areas such as retail, hospitality and construction, organisations in most sectors continued to look for strong talent, particularly for business critical functions such as finance, compliance and IT.

Looking ahead, we expect market sentiment to remain cautious yet positive. With Hong Kong being a confidence-based economy, there might be further uplift in hiring in the second half of the year if the global economy is able to sustain its growth."