PIKOM, the National ICT Association of Malaysia announced its 2013 ICT Job Market Outlook today. Following the earlier Job Market study series, PIKOM again collaborated with KPMG and Jobstreet on the 2012 job market analysis. The 2013 report gives an overall study on the job market in Malaysia comparing to the region by focusing on the state of ICT Jobs, in particular the salary component.
[L-R: Ong Kian Yew, Executive Director of PIKOM and Mr. Woon Tai Hai, Chairman of PIKOM]
Key highlights in this report include an increase of 8.7% in average salary over 2011, the top paying jobs and industries and three featured articles. The report again confirms that ICT industry remains in the top five paying industries in Malaysia.
“Despite the challenging economic state and uncertainty in the political scene last year, there is still an upward growth in the average salary for ICT professionals, be it junior or senior level. We expect this positive growth to continue for the remainder of 2013 with a projected increase of 8.9%,” said Woon Tai Hai, PIKOM Chairman.
The overall average salary of ICT professional increased from RM 6,240 in 2011 to RM 6,782 in 2012, a rise of 8.7%. Average entry-level salary for fresh graduates continues to grow from RM 2,238 to RM2, 343, albeit only a marginal increase of 4.7%. “Although there has been improvement on the average salary, the supply of ICT fresh graduates continues to decline. At the same time, enabling the employability of our fresh graduates is still an ongoing discussion and debate,” added Woon.
Looking at a 5-year trend, it appears that sales, marketing and business development continue to be highly sought after jobs. Meanwhile, jobs for Customer Service seem to be losing their shines as the hottest job in the country. The survey results also indicate that ICT professionals in technical domain whom equipped with Java, C#, C++, dotNet, SharePoint and Web Application Development are highly in demand. While under the business applications, there is a fast-growing demand for ‘Big Data’ analytics; and Quality and Process Improvement skill sets. Woon opined and suggested that this may be due to the rapid technological advancements especially in the areas of analytics and business intelligent. Structural changes in the employment and business environments are one of the key reasons as well.
In terms of jobs by level and years in experience, IT Engineers in senior level earn about 46% higher than the junior level. Also, typically ICT professionals with more than 20 years of experience will earn 5.22 times more than those with less than a year experience; and by 3.39 times for those who have 10 to 19 years of experience respectively.
Similar to the previous years, the data again shows that big companies in Malaysia continue to pay more as compared to smaller organisations – to an extent of 1.88 times more.
The report also once again proves that companies in Klang Valley offer comparatively higher salary to a tune of 1.75 times more compared to the lowest paid location. Within the region, with a Purchase Power Parity (PPP) adjusted data it shows that countries like Indonesia, Philippines and India are paying relatively lower salary for ICT professionals. While Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Vietnam and Thailand continue to attract ICT professionals into their countries because of the salary factor.
Woon anticipates, “By 2018, the salary gap is likely to level up among booming Asian economies such as Singapore, Hong Kong, China and Vietnam. Malaysia will have to stay ahead of this salary curve to prevent further exodus and erosion of our talents to these economies.”
One piece of good news from the report is that the Job Sentiment Index in Malaysia remains positive. Not only had the Job Employment Confident Index moved up from 48.8 to 49.1, but the Job Hiring Index also improved from 2.62 to 2.96, (2012 to Q1 2013).
Check out the presentation slides below:
