Fewer job openings in media: Survey

By Cao Li (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-01-22 07:43

SHANGHAI -- If you are hunting for a job, the media industry is probably not a great choice to consider at the moment, according to a recent survey.

Hudson Asia, a leading provider of human resource services, conducted a survey recently and found that only 18 percent of the respondents in media, advertising and public relations were ready to hire new staff in the first quarter this year.

The previous year, 33 percent of them were looking to hire new staff, Mark Carriban, the managing director of the company, said Wednesday.

"Since advertising has been reduced significantly, media firms are not aggressively hiring," he said.

"Many firms have frozen employment and are focusing on consolidating their existing teams."

With the deepening financial crisis, employment expectations on the mainland have seen a substantial fall, but continue to remain stronger than other Asian markets the company surveyed, such as Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore.

The survey found that 34 percent of the respondents on the mainland are planning to increase their headcount in the first quarter of 2009, compared with 44 percent in the previous quarter and 61 percent in the first quarter of 2008.

During the same period, employment expectations in Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore dropped to 14, 12 and 14 percent respectively.

Consumer and IT industries saw a slight increase in hiring expectations - 1 and 3 percent respectively - while banking and financial services suffered a 21 percent drop. Job expectations in media, public relations, advertising, and manufacturing dropped down to 15 percent.

"Many IT firms started hiring a lot before the Olympics and are now reacting to the current economic situation by hiring selectively and cutting back in weaker products and service areas," Carriban said.

However, despite the slowdown, nearly half of the respondents are confident of improvement in 2009, anticipating "excellent or good business performance", but are becoming more cautious in human resource strategy, he said.

A majority of respondents said they would give their newly-recruited employees "zero or less than 10 percent" raise this year.

Twenty-nine percent of the firms said they will freeze their headcount, while 26 percent said they will need approval from the headquarters before hiring new staff. And 23 percent said they will take advantage of the crisis and hire talents that were earlier not available to them.