Finance
Recruitment activity became more active throughout 2022 as candidates became more proactive in job seeking after being more conservative during the previous two years of the COVID-19 pandemic and political unrest.
From our observation, more candidates actively applied for jobs, and the unemployment rate declined in most sectors as the borders gradually opened in the second half of 2022 and businesses resumed normal activities with entire teams. Hiring activity was primarily identified in the Consumer, Hospitality, Education and Technology industries and hiring demand across the Tax, Internal Audit and FP&A functions was significant. Key drivers to hiring activities included Hong Kong emigration, talent movement to Singapore & Shanghai, career breaks and team upskilling.
Outlook for 2023
In a more job-driven market, we expect candidates' risk appetite to consider new roles in 2023 will increase as more jobs become available due to continued emigration and team upskilling. Business investment and finance projects. Candidates with knowledge of system enhancement and transformation projects are in high demand.
We expect Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Power BI and Digitalization to continue to be adopted and embedded by larger businesses this year. We recommend that finance candidates familiarize themselves with how finance functions can utilize these tools to stay competitive in this market. Finance candidates will be sought after from a finance user point of view to help calibrate these innovations and ensure they are utilized and beneficial for finance teams.
We expect skills relating to business transformation, finance project management and digitalization, cash flow analysis, transfer pricing and cross-border international tax to remain in high demand. Clients should continue to acquire talent and upskill existing teams with new skills to operate efficiently in a data-driven era and to keep up with the dynamic changes in regulatory reporting.
Equally, given candidates are prioritizing work flexibility, medical benefits and stability of the business alongside compensation and brand recognition, it will be necessary for companies to ensure their Employee value proposition remains attractive.