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Asia may be struggling with a labor shortage in the wake of the pandemic, but Peter Bitos, CEO of job portal operator Seek Asia, said it was nothing like the “Great Resignation” in North America.
Instead, Asia’s workforce lacks people with the skills to fill technology roles at companies, Bitos told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia.”
“What we’re seeing is a major reconfiguration of the types of talent needed in the workforce,” he said. This is reflected in the increase in tech role listings on Seek platforms, up 66% year-on-year, according to Bithos.
Despite layoffs at tech companies, “every sector of the economy outside of tech” is hiring tech workers, Bitos explained. Tech jobs in Asia remain reliable and are “highly in demand,” he added.
Searches on job portals JobsDB and JobStreet, operated by Seek Asia, revealed 57,902 information technology jobs available in six Asian economies: Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand.
Applicants for these tech roles are up 14%, which Bitos says could be due to layoffs in the tech sector, as well as people feeling “confident” enough to look for work once the pandemic is over.
There are still plenty of jobs available for the laid-off workers, but those roles may not be at a “pure tech” company, Bitos said.
Tech jobs account for nearly half of the fastest-growing jobs in Singapore over the past five years, according to LinkedIn’s 2023 Growth Jobs list. These include jobs like cybersecurity engineer, back-end developer, and artificial intelligence engineer.
