Recruitment consultancy Robert Walters expects the IT and telecommunications sectors to continue to show strong hiring numbers in the second half of 2011. 

The company also recently revealed that more than 82% of people working across Singapore received a salary increase this year, according to a recent global survey of more than 3,200 professionals.

According to the survey, 40% of respondents received a pay rise of between one and five percent, 20% received between six and ten percent, 14% received between 11 and 20 percent and 8% received more than 21%.

“After coming off such a strong year of economic growth in 2010 in Singapore, it was not surprising that salary levels increased across all sectors," says Andrea Ross, Managing Director at Robert Walters Singapore & Malaysia.

According to Ross, the large increases in 2011 predominantly came from the non-financial services industry, as salaries within the financial services sector had a sharp increase last year. Another factor contributing to the increase in salaries at the start of the year would be an added focus of companies in trying to retain their top talent by providing competitive remuneration.”

Overall, employees in Asia received the highest pay rises. This was in sharp contrast to employees in the West like those in Ireland, Belgium, New Zealand and Australia where a large proportion of employees received no pay rise at all. 

Improved Economy Improves Hiring Expectations 

Annie Lim, Manager (IT Commerce) said that in the first half of the year, the improved economy resulted in high recruitment activity in line with business expansion and growth.

"We observed active hiring activity within the pharmaceutical, healthcare, oil & gas, utilities and retail sectors," says Lim. Additionally, companies renewed their systems and infrastructure platforms which consequently led to an increased demand for pre-sales consultants, project managers, bid managers, as well as solution architects within the IT & telecommunication sectors."

According to Robert Walters, within the end-user sector, roles within systems, infrastructure, sales support, marketing applications, sales automations and customer relationship management were highly sought-after as organizations continued to focus on increasing productivity and effectiveness.