Companies still hiring now looking forward to post-epidemic recovery: Mekari survey

While most businesses have already been forced to downsize and have halted recruiting new staff, a recent survey has discovered that some companies are continuing to employ new employees within their technique for faster recovery after the health crisis ends.

A recently published month-long survey by Mekari, a human resource and financial solutions start-up, demonstrates most Indonesian companies have either frozen or reduced hiring through the COVID-19 epidemic.

Talenta, Mekari’s human resource information system (HRIS), collected data on 558 companies which were still recruiting before social distancing was implemented in early March. Of the, only 410 were still hiring between March 13 and April 13.

It also discovered that 64 percent of the surveyed companies had reduced their recruitment target from seven new hires monthly to just two on average.

Concurrently, the info showed that 25 percent of the surveyed companies continued to employ until the home based (WFH) policy was issued, while 11 percent of the firms maintained the same recruitment rate before and following the WFH was implemented.

“You may still find companies that are hiring employees, despite the fact that the numbers aren't large,” Mekari vice president marketing Standie Nagadi said on Thursday. “That is one of the strategic steps the firms have taken so that when the pandemic ends, they are able to bounce back faster," he said.

Standie said that the survey data was aggregated and anonymous, and that Mekari had not been given usage of clients' internal data to recognize the business sectors which were still hiring during the epidemic.

“Technology will play an integral role in the post-pandemic 'new normal'. There can be an increasing demand for technologies that will help companies implement working from home, [systems],” he said.

The hiring freeze and reduction have managed to get problematic for fresh university graduates to find jobs. Statistics Indonesia (BPS) implies that around 737,000 of the country’s 13 million university graduates were unemployed in August, 2019, or 5.67 percent. This is still higher than the country's overall unemployment rate of 5.28 percent during the same period.

The Manpower Ministry's data revealed that around 1.7 million formal and informal personnel had lost their jobs by May 1. In the formal sector, 375,165 personnel were categorized as Pemutusan Hubungan Kerja (PHK), or termination of employment, while a lot more than 1 million employees were "pekerja dirumahkan" (on unpaid leave).

The Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) presents a stark contrast, estimating that at least 6 million workers had lost their jobs as a result of monetary impacts of the COVID-19 epidemic.

Some start-ups also have reduced hiring and placed employees on unpaid leave to stay afloat through the outbreak. Others, like Airy Rooms, have permanently shuttered their businesses.

Country director Steve Sutanto of Glints Indonesia, a career development platform and graduate recruitment network, said earlier that businesses had are more prudent in hiring new talent. He also noted that the retail, travel, aviation and food and beverage industries were being among the most affected.

A separate survey by the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) and SurveySensum found that 58 percent of Indonesian businesses had cut their recruitment budgets. The figure is slightly lower than the common 61 percent of businesses in India, Singapore and Vietnam that had imposed recruitment budget cuts.

The survey also showed that businesses in Singapore had taken the most aggressive method of cutting recruitment budgets, accompanied by Indian and Indonesian businesses.

“Over time, there has been more pessimism as persons concerned about the security of their jobs, incomes and finances, which includes resulted in consumers reducing their spending aswell,” said SurveySensum CEO Rajiv Lamba.

Lamba also noted that 89 percent of transportation companies and 76 percent of financial services companies surveyed in the four countries said that they had cut their hiring budgets.

Meanwhile, the e-commerce and the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sectors had the lowest percentage of businesses reporting recruitment budget cuts, he said. The two sectors were only moderately damaged and both have optimism that they can bounce back rapidly post-COVID-19.

Reuters reported that FMCG manufacturer Unilever, whose products include personal care items like soap and shampoo, confirmed in April that it was hiring to fill 300 global jobs, but without elaborating further.

The International Labor Organization has warned that 1.6 billion workers, or nearly half of the global workforce, could lose their livelihoods, especially in the informal economy.