“In the Asia and Pacific (APAC) countries, we can see hiring numbers exceeding the global average.” said Pei Ying Chua, APAC Head Economist at LinkedIn. According to her, companies continue to grow their business footprint in the region, particularly in fields like manufacturing, finance, and professional services, also in healthcare industry. Pei Ying mentioned that there is a clear and growing demand for workers in the healthcare sector. Data proves her argument, giving that the demand for talents has an increase rate by 11% compared to December 2019, ranking first among industries.

Pei Ying noticed that one of the most in-demand core trade talents in the Asia-Pacific region is a somewhat “combination of skills”. LinkedIn data shows a growing importance of job roles that require “hybrid skills”, which means a combination of technical skills, operational skills, and human-centric skills. There is also a rising importance place on language fluency in a global finance market, which creates a model of talent with “language+skills”.

Meanwhile, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become vital in these years, also affecting hiring markets in the APAC region. AI has created more than 1.3 million job positions worldwide in the past two years. 

“What we have found is a clear imbalance in the AI talent market. More than 70% of recruiters across APAC say it is harder to find qualified candidates.” Pei Ying said. According to her, there are 2 main categories of AI-related skills, one is AI engineering, which only few of the workforce have, the other is AI literacy, which means ability to understand and effectively use AI tools, and is regarded as critically important by Pei Ying.