Hays Oil & Gas - January 2009

Hotspots

Across the Asia Pacific region and globally, the oil and gas sector is still extremely candidate short. The high price and ever-increasing demand for oil and gas is making more fields feasible for development, and development fast tracking is an attractive option for many majors. This has created demand across the industry for drilling, exploration, geoscience, operations, and project controls staff.

The offshore market is particularly short of skilled, experienced engineers.

The prime hotspot of demand in Singapore is design and construction engineers with 5 to 20 years relevant experience in the oil and gas industry.

The coming quarter

With many companies in the midst of heavy tendering phases, and projects in the feasibility stage moving into construction and commissioning, recruitment in the oil and gas sector is expected to forge ahead in the near future. In addition, there is an ongoing investment into exploration and drilling programs as demand for oil continues, furthering requirements for quality candidates.

Singapore has seen a number of big players move into the market with aggressive expansion plans in already short markets, meaning expatriate labour will still be required to fill the gaps.

Executive recruitment

The Asia Pacific oil and gas industry has generally been run by Western expatriates with experience from the North Sea or Gulf of Mexico. Companies are now trying to move away from this trend by replacing leaving expatriates with locals in key roles, partially due to the need to decrease spending on expatriate benefits. This has created large demand for local candidates with these skills.

Salaries

Salaries are expected to plateau across the board despite continued candidate shortages. This was inevitable with salaries in Singapore growing by an unsustainable 100 per cent over the past 3 years. Companies are now looking more closely at non-monetary benefits to attract top talent.

Candidate trends

Singapore is still a highly sought after expatriate location, with many candidates eager to take advantage of the major projects, easy lifestyle, and tax breaks. As the cost of maintaining expatriate benefits becomes more difficult for companies to manage, competition for these roles has increased.