The Aon Hewitt and Jobstreet.com Job seekers' Preference Survey was launched and conducted in October 2010, and collected about 14,000 responses from job seekers in Asia on their perception about companies from 12 countries including China. The survey was conducted in eight countries namely India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Thailand.
Figure 1: Overall Preference Rating1 and Ranking
| Job Seekers' Country of Residence | |||||||||||||
| All Respondents (N = 13,496) |
India (n = 1,316) |
Indonesia (n = 2,494) |
Malaysia (n = 3,440) |
Philippines (n = 5,236) |
Singapore (n = 991) |
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| Overall Rating | Rank | Rating | Rank | Rating | Rank | Rating | Rank | Rating | Rank | Rating | Rank | ||
| Companies' Country of Origin | American | 78% | 1 | 78% | 2 | 80% | 1 | 71% | 1 | 84% | 1 | 65% | 1 |
| British | 73% | 2 | 72% | 3 | 78% | 2 | 70% | 2 | 74% | 3 | 57% | 2 | |
| Australian | 67% | 3 | 54% | 8 | 67% | 4 | 63% | 3 | 75% | 2 | 50% | 4 | |
| German | 62% | 4 | 71% | 5 | 71% | 3 | 58% | 4 | 60% | 7 | 52% | 3 | |
| Japanese | 60% | 5 | 66% | 6 | 66% | 5 | 52% | 5 | 66% | 4 | 36% | 7 | |
| Singaporean | 57% | 6 | 71% | 4 | 56% | 7 | 46% | 6 | 63% | 5 | 47% | 5 | |
| French | 55% | 7 | 56% | 7 | 60% | 6 | 45% | 7 | 61% | 6 | 39% | 6 | |
| Korean | 43% | 8 | 45% | 10 | 40% | 8 | 40% | 8 | 48% | 8 | 26% | 9 | |
| Hong Kong | 38% | 9 | 49% | 9 | 31% | 9 | 34% | 9 | 43% | 9 | 28% | 8 | |
| Taiwanese | 32% | 10 | 35% | 11 | 25% | 11 | 29% | 10 | 38% | 10 | 26% | 9 | |
| Chinese | 30% | 11 | 30% | 12 | 29% | 10 | 27% | 11 | 33% | 11 | 19% | 11 | |
| Indian | 28% | 12 | 87% | 1 | 19% | 12 | 16% | 12 | 28% | 12 | 16% | 12 | |
1 Preference rating refers to total the percentage of respondents who select "Would Prefer" or "Definitely Prefer" as their answer to working for employers of the various nationalities.
The survey points to a substantial gap between Asian and Western companies in terms of their attractiveness to job seekers in Asia. The preference ratings for American and British companies are as high as 84% and 78% in some countries, compared to the 60% overall preference rating for Japanese companies which is the best ranked Asian nationality in this survey.
"What strikes us is how far behind the Asian companies are in terms of being the preferred employer. With a tight job market and a strong employment outlook for 2011 in the region, Asian companies would need to enhance their value proposition as an employer to attract the talent they want, both at home and around the region," said Simon Si, Head Regional Communications, Jobstreet.com.
The survey shows that most job seekers in the region consider 'excellent work environment' as the most important attribute when they select an employer (see figure 2). Nearly all, 96%, of the respondents rate 'excellent working environment' as the most important attribute.
"Our analysis shows that the desire to work for a company with an excellent working environment is positively correlated with the desire to work for American or British companies but negatively correlated with the desire to work for an Asian company. All else being equal, most job seekers would prefer not to join a Chinese company because of the negative perception about the working environment. Such perception could become a huge stumbling block for Chinese companies to attract top talent in the Asian region," said Rick Payne, Regional Practice Leader, Human Capital, Aon Hewitt.
"In recent years, although top Chinese companies are becoming more popular as employer at home because they are willing to offer more attractive salary and provide better career growth, they are far less popular abroad. If they want to attract talents from the other region, these Chinese companies need to have a good grasp of the talent they want to attract, and invest in an effective employer branding plan. An effective employer brand communicates the employment experience and the expectations of both employer and employee," said Audrey Widjaja, Consulting Director, Aon Hewitt, Greater China.
About Aon Hewitt and Jobstreet.com Jobseeker's Preference Survey
The 2010 Jobseeker's Preference Survey was jointly conducted by JobStreet.com and Aon Hewitt Consulting. The survey was administered online throughout the month of October 2010 and gathered a total of 13,964 valid responses. All of this year's respondents have at least a university degree, with 17% holding a Master's degree or above. A total of 57% of the respondents are below the age of 30 and about 30% are between the ages of 30 to 39. The ratio between male and female respondents was approximately 3 to 2. Close to 98% of the respondents reside in the following five countries: the Philippines (38%), Malaysia (25%), Indonesia (18%), India (10%) and Singapore (7%).
About Aon Hewitt
Aon Hewitt is the global leader in human resource consulting and outsourcing solutions. The company partners with organizations to solve their most complex benefits, talent and related financial challenges, and improve business performance. Aon Hewitt designs, implements, communicates and administers a wide range of human capital, retirement, investment management, health care, compensation and talent management strategies. With more than 29,000 professionals in 90 countries, Aon Hewitt makes the world a better place to work for clients and their employees. For more information on Aon Hewitt, please visit www.aonhewitt.com.
About Aon
Aon Corporation (NYSE:AON) is the leading global provider of risk management services, insurance and reinsurance brokerage, and human resources solutions and outsourcing. Through its more than 59,000 colleagues worldwide, Aon unites to deliver distinctive client value via innovative and effective risk management and workforce productivity solutions. Aon's industry-leading global resources and technical expertise are delivered locally in over 120 countries. Named the world's best broker by Euromoney magazine's 2008, 2009 and 2010 Insurance Survey, Aon also ranked highest on Business Insurance's listing of the world's insurance brokers based on commercial retail, wholesale, reinsurance and personal lines brokerage revenues in 2008 and 2009. A.M. Best deemed Aon the number one insurance broker based on revenues in 2007, 2008 and 2009, and Aon was voted best insurance intermediary 2007-2010, best reinsurance intermediary 2006-2010, best captives manager 2009-2010, and best employee benefits consulting firm 2007-2009 by the readers of Business Insurance. Visit http://www.aon.com for more information on Aon and http://www.aon.com/manchesterunited to learn about Aon's global partnership and shirt sponsorship with Manchester United.
About Jobstreet.com
JobStreet operates the JobStreet.com ( www.jobstreet.com ) online recruitment websites presently covering the employment markets in Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia, India, Japan and Thailand. The Group currently services over 60,000 corporate customers and over 8 million jobseekers. JobStreet is listed on Main Board of Bursa Malaysia Securities (JOBST).
