KUALA LUMPUR: Certain sectors are actively looking to hire skilled and experienced candidates at higher basic salaries, according to a report by workforce management and human resources solutions provider Kelly Services Malaysia Sdn Bhd.

The findings from the report were obtained through Kelly Service Malaysia’s transactions with about 3,000 clients as well as human resource data from its client database.

Companies were slowly but surely increasing their hiring in the current quarter compared with the first three months of the year, said Kelly Services Malaysia vice-president Melissa Norman.

The unemployment rate in the last quarter was 4.5%.

Telecommunications, digital and information TECHNOLOGY [] (IT), engineering, healthcare, Islamic finance, call centres, outsourcing and shared service sectors were still hiring with emphasis on specific skill sets, she said.

“Hot jobs across the board include mechanical and civil engineers, quantity surveyors, safety officers, finance managers, corporate credit risk heads, accountants, financial analysts, Islamic finance specialists, nurses, doctors, radiographers, senior human resource managers, compensation and benefits specialists, and recruitment managers,” she said.

Top earners are from the IT sector, with programme leadership and strategic positions such as chief information officers and programme directors who have 12-18 years of experience commanding salaries from RM12,000 to RM30,000.

“Clients are looking to fill and replace essential positions that make a big difference to organisations today,” she said. Additionally, there is a large demand for sales, marketing and business development talents with proven track records.

“The pick-up in hiring is led by sales, particularly for positions such as sales managers, marketing managers, channel management heads and business development managers,” she said.

This continued hiring trend was attributed to the stabilisation in exports and industrial output, she added. Malaysia’s manufacturing output significantly shrank 17.6% in the first quarter of this year, led by a 23.1% contraction in export-oriented industries.

In contrast, manufacturing, logistics, warehousing, electrical and electronic sectors continued to be more cautious in hiring, with a longer hiring period of four to six weeks, she said.

“We’ve also noticed that cost-controlling measures were introduced in these industries,” she added, citing freezes on bonus payouts and salary increments, cutting down on overtime, providing incentives based on performance and extensions on unpaid leave as examples.

“Pay bases for entry positions such as data entry clerks are smaller to make performance-based incentives more effective,” she said.

On average, skilled workforce with more than four years of job experience recorded a 3% rise in their minimum salary from last year while those with more than seven years of experience recorded an 8%-15% increase in maximum salary, according to the report.

“These increases are seen in all industries covered in the report,” she said.

In comparison, the salaries of non-skilled workforce with less than two years of experience recorded a 15%-20% decrease, while those with more than three years of experience saw a 5%-10% drop.

As such, in this economic climate, retrenched experienced workers are more likely to find employment than inexperienced fresh graduates as companies are seeking to hire work-ready candidates.

“That would be the immediate pull that employers are looking for, because everyone is looking for people who can hit the ground running and deliver immediate results,” she said.

This article appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, June 10, 2009.