JobTech tracks the most active industries that have generated the largest number of job vacancies for the month of March, leveraging JobTech data from over a 1-year period from April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021. This shows the industries that are actively hiring amidst prevailing market conditions and should serve as a guide for identifying the relevant skills that are in demand, as well as for shortlisting potential companies that are actively hiring.

Figure 1: proportion of job vacancies of the top 5 actively hiring industries

In March 2021, the top 5 industries by number of job vacancies were the banking and finance industry, the professional services industry, the information and communications technology (ICT) industry, the public service and the construction industry. Collectively, the top 5 industries accounted for approximately 59% of the total number of job vacancies for the month.

The banking and finance industry accounted for about 21% of the total number of job vacancies, followed by the professional services industry with roughly 16%. The ICT industry and the public service contributed to approximately 9% and 8% of the total number of job vacancies respectively, while the construction industry accounted for 6%.

Figure 2: year-over-year growth of the top 5 industries

The banking and finance industry saw a 302.6% increase in job vacancies year-over-year (YoY) in March 2021, compared to March 2020, beating out the 233.8% YoY growth in public service job vacancies. The construction industry saw a year-over-year growth of 194.7% in the number of job vacancies in March 2021, exceeding that of the professional services industry, which had a growth of 92.2%. Lastly, the ICT industry experienced 34.3% YoY growth.

Figure 3: month-over-month growth of job vacancies of the top 5 actively hiring industries

In March 2021, the total number of job vacancies grew by 11% month-over-month (MoM). By comparison, the growth in job vacancies of the banking and finance industry as well as the ICT industry both stood at -2% month-over-month, underperforming against the monthly growth of total job vacancies. The public service performed better than the growth of total job vacancies, coming in at 13% MoM. Job vacancies in the construction industry saw a 37% MoM growth, far exceeding the growth of total job vacancies. The professional services industry matched the monthly growth in the total number of job vacancies, with 11%.

The positive performance of the total number of job vacancies, in terms of monthly growth, comes in spite of the dampening effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, in part due to the government’s wage subsidy scheme, the Jobs Growth Incentive, that was set in motion to encourage the hiring of local workers. The scheme provides incentives for firms, in the form of wage support, and saw an uptake of hiring across multiple industries, particularly the ICT and professional services industries.