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Asia may be struggling with a shortage of workers after the pandemic, but Peter Bithos, CEO of job portal operator Seek Asia, said it was not the same as the “big resignation” from North America.
Instead, the Asian workforce lacks people with the skills to fill technology roles in companies, Bithos told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia.”
“What we’ve seen is a big reconfiguration of the kinds of talent needed” in the workforce, he said. This is reflected in the increase in technical role listings on Seek’s platforms, which is up 66% year over year, according to Bithos.
Despite layoffs at tech companies, nearly “every sector of the economy outside of tech” is hiring tech workers, Bithos explained. Tech jobs in Asia remain robust and are “in high demand”, he added.
A search of job portals JobsDB and JobStreet, which are operated by Seek Asia, showed 57,902 jobs available in the information technology category in six Asian economies: Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand.
Applicants for these tech roles have increased by 14%, which Bithos says may be driven by tech layoffs as well as people feeling “confident” enough to seek employment amid the pandemic. coming to an end.
The laid-off workers still have plenty of jobs available to them, though those roles might not be at a “pure tech” company, Bithos said.
Tech jobs have accounted for nearly half of the fastest growing job titles in Singapore over the past five years, LinkedIn said in its 2023 “Jobs on the Rise” listing. These include jobs such as cybersecurity engineer, back-end developer, and artificial intelligence engineer.