Working closely with Myanmar’s top employers, we understand that there is a limited pool of talent with the required combination of qualifications, skill and work experience to fill certain positions. Not surprisingly many employers have to look further afield for these candidates.

An analysis of JobNet data reveals that currently 28% of job vacancies are open to applications from repats and 2.5% open to expats.

The most in demand job functions that are currently open to repats are Sales / BD (23%), Accounting / Finance (17%) and Marketing (15%), IT / Software / Hardware (10%) and  Engineering / Technical (10%). These roles have also been the most in demand job functions overall, for both manager level and experienced non-managers, since 01 January 2018 to date.

In July, JobNet organized a job fair in Singapore on behalf of some of our top employers. With approximately 200,000 Myanmar nationals working and living in Singapore, we were all interested in evaluating the potential of this talent pool. 

The two-day event, held at the Raffles City Convention Centre, attracted approximately 3,000 job seekers. Pleasingly some employers were able to interview, assess and make job offers to candidates during the event, while others opened dialogue with interested candidates to be followed up after the event.

Our survey of attendees revealed that experienced non-managers represented 69% of job seekers who attended the event.

The Job Seekers that attended the event represented a wide range of job functions, with 23% of surveyed attendees currently working in the IT industry, while 17% in engineering-related roles

Overwhelmingly, the main reason that Job Seekers gave for wanting to return home Myanmar was to be close to their family and friends. Most said that if they could find the right job with the right salary, they would definitely return to Myanmar.