KUALA LUMPUR: Wage earners can expect salary hikes of between 20 to 25 per cent in 2018 when they change jobs in the banking & financial services, engineering and legal & compliance sectors.
The Information and Technology sector is also expected to grow the fastest next year in a candidate-driven market with salary increments ranging between 20 to 30 per cent.
Robert Walters, a specialist professional recruitment consultancy company, said Malaysia experienced steady hiring activity in 2017 due to the country's ease of doing business, political stability, market growth and business-friendly government-driven initiatives.
Robert Walters Malaysia country manager Kimberlyn Lu said hiring activity will remain active in 2018, driven mostly by continuous growth of e-commerce, digitalisation, fintech, shared services and better organisational optimisation.
"We see a high demand in IT jobs spanning across the fintech, banking, as well as the healthcare sector such as data analysts, software engineers and cyber security.
"Candidates with niche skills and better adaptability stand a better chance of being hired as trends are set to change to a different one based on companies' specified skills required for them," she said.
The IT sector saw a spike in demand for software developers skilled in programming languages in 2017 as organisations looked to fill hybrid positions with top candidates who were adept in more than one coding language.
"This trend is set to continue as we see more need such as in the implementation of the Digital Free Trade Zone and businesses moving towards digitalisation," she added.
Candidates with high potential or niche skills are also expected to enjoy increments of between 25 per cent to 30 per cent when they move jobs, although a raise of 15-20 per cent is common business practice.
Organisations will also continue to attract Malaysian talent (returning Malaysians) as their international experience is highly valued.