Hiring activity through the first half of 2023 remained flat with the majority of hires replacements and aimed at the junior to mid-level. The main reasons include:

Macro factors such as China's economy not recovering at the rate many expected.
For example, manufacturing outputs continue to decrease month on month (although the decline is slowing) and GDP forecasts are now lowered to 5% (expectations at the start of the year came in at around 7%)

Firms across various sectors are now questioning the viability of being based in the city long term and as such, have started to explore other locations such as Singapore to be the regional HQ.
For example, we recently hired a regional leader role for a global MNC. This role was first hired 10 years ago in Hong Kong for reasons pertaining to the city as a gateway to China and overall hub to the region. With natural attrition and a chance to look at developing business needs, they concluded it made commercial sense for the role to be based in Singapore for better access to key markets such as SEA, ANZ, Korea and Japan.

Lowering risk appetite
Lawyers simply do not want to risk changing jobs for all of the reasons above. As such, the natural attrition and merry go round that occurs in every recruitment market is not taking place right now.

Outlook for Q3 / Q4...

July & August

This is the first year post protests and the pandemic where summer holidays seem to be back in abundance and as such, hiring takes a back seat.

September

Post summer and with the compliment of various China based stimulus packages announced, we would hope to see an uptick in job activity.

Q4

If we stick to the theme of cycles returning, this is typically the beginning of the busy season.

Our Advice...

We see a potential skill-set shortage in Singapore and an opportunity for Hong Kong to regain lost ground as firms will eventually (upturn in China / Global sentiment ) need to expand search parameters due to a lack of locally available talent, these areas include:

• M&A / PE work with a focus on China

• Transactional, Commercial & Compliance experience across North Asia, in particular Korea and Japan

• Data Privacy & Cyber Security

The first half of 2023 has been what we would describe as a reset / re-balancing period of time.

Redundancies:
We have recorded over 100 redundancies across all sectors (but mainly tech focused) since Q4 2022. To put in perspective we usually record less than 5 a year.

It is well publicised that firms such as Google, Microsoft and Coinbase have reduced headcount globally, however the impact on Asia is often limited due to operations already at full capacity for resourcing. However, this time around sectors hardest hit include crypto/ blockchain/web 3.0, software/Internet and media

Sector reset:
The last 3-4 years we have seen an unusually high proportion of tech related legal roles hit the market, many created to support growing sales and commercial teams as businesses required greater legal support during the the covid pandemic.

As we continue into a post pandemic era, dormant sectors have returned to growth and these include consumer goods, real estate, construction and healthcare. We have seen a particular increase and focus in consumer related e-commerce channels across multiple sectors.

Our prediction for Q3, Q4 and 2024 is 'Ecommerce'

With Covid now feeling like it's truly in the rear view mirror, the focus for firms across various industries is to restart their digital transformation. If any positives can be taken away from the pandemic, it would be that moving distribution models online is the way to accelerate sales and market share.

As such, we predict that lawyers with the following skills will be in high demand:

• Ecommerce commercial experience: Understanding how to work with sales teams (contracts and technology linked agreements)

• Ecommerce regulatory experience: Understanding the regulatory landscape around product launches, country specific rules and regulations, cross-border implications

• Country growth: Korea and Japan are developed, highly profitable but complex markets for Ecommerce

What else do we have our eye on?

Family offices in Singapore have increased from 400 to over 1,200 in the past 18 months and whilst they can be unique in stakeholder engagement, they can also be hugely rewarding both the mix of work and financially.