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about Asia Buzz
AsiaBuzz: Help Wanted!
Filling the gap in techie talent
By ERIC ELLIS
April 27, 2000
Web posted at 4 p.m. Hong Kong time, 4 a.m. EDT
"Good talent is hard to find." It's a refrain heard all over Asia,
uttered by everyone from over-pampered expat wives to local tai-tais
complaining about their maids to budget-conscious bizoids with functionary
slots to fill.
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In particular, it has been a constant exhortation since Asia got used to the hyper-development that came with the region's emergence as the world's sweatshop, the place where A great many of the globe's consumer products are assembled. The bulk of the jobs Asia has created have been low-level laboring and manufacturing tasks, like moulding Nikes in Nha Trang or Mitsubushis in Malaysia, or building dams along the Yangtze or airports in Hong Kong, Singapore or Kuala Lumpur.
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In the main, these jobs have been the sort where education and skills
weren't always necessary, where the qualifications were usually a
willingness to work long hours on tedious production lines for little
pay enriching sometimes tyrannical employers. Indeed, the way many
Asian managers see it, good workers and industrial relations in Asia's
Old Economy should be a little like obedient children, seen but not
heard.
But in the New Knowledge Economy, things are different. There's now
a frantic democracy in the workplace, prompted by the share-option
culture of Internet start-ups. Employee-shareholders these days are
almost required to have a little attitude, speak up, be creative,
even challenge the boss.
But in autocratic "old" Asia, in places like Singapore, where workers
have long been encouraged by their leaders to be acquiescent and uncomplaining,
that employee profile is proving hard to fill. And as Asia wires itself,
this is becoming a crisis. The tech-oriented research group International
Data Corp. forecasts a tech-job logjam that won't clear for at least
a decade. That will do more to hold back the industry than any share-market
crash.
That's partly why Singapore's Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew and Prime
Minister Goh Chok Tong use every opportunity these days to drum that
message into their citizens, to try somehow to change overnight the
compliant local mindset that their People's Action Party has been
largely responsible for creating.
But how does this play out in the marketplace? The fact is, there
is an acute shortage of techie talent across the region. It's a big
problem for employers. They have to go online to secure their slot
in the New Economy, but there are few bodies to take them there. Indeed,
it's never been a better time to be a nerd, or a headhunter for that
matter. As the region adjusts to the dotcom revolution, six-figure
salaries in "real money" (U.S. dollars) are becoming commonplace for
hot techies. And if that's not good enough, there's the El Dorado
of Silicon Valley to be plundered, where, given the numbers of foreign
work visas being issued, "IT" could just as easily mean "India and
Taiwan."
Despite Nasdaq's recent shakiness, the Internet is not going away.
For Asian employers, as for governments like Singapore's, the challenge
is to adjust their mindset, to find and keep good staff.
Just ask Singaporean headhunter Sally Chew and her British husband
Chris Claridge. The pair recently set up Cybertalentworks.com, one
of many jobs-for-techies sites sprouting up all over Asia. Chew and
Claridge got the idea while trying to find people to fill slots for
Richard Li's Pacific Century Cyberworks (hence the name). As they
scouted out potential talent for Li, they were finding it difficult
to fill slots locally. The Net is helping solve the problem. Now the
jobs clients post on their site can be scanned and filled by candidates
who have got what it takes, whether they are in Sydney or Santiago,
Zamboanga or Zanzibar.
For online headhunters like Chew and Claridge, it's a recasting of
a discipline they know well. They had built a solid franchise during
the 1980s and '90s placing bankers and brokers. It was lucrative while
economies were roaring but slimmer pickings after the 1997-98 financial
crisis. Now they've dotcommed themselves, and are helping Asian firms
do the same.
Ticked off at Asia Buzz? Turned on? Talk back to TIME
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