Overall Summary

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While we thought we saw some green shoots at the end of Q1, Q2 initially showed some improvement in hiring volume, but towards the end of Q2, the market seemed to lose steam. 

We did see a sustained increase in the number of roles related to artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data science. This has been the case in many domains, including banking and insurance. 

The insurance sector and in general contracting roles were more active. Hiring for permanent roles in the banking sector remained lacklustre.

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Banking and Buy Side:  

Although still relatively quiet compared to the insurance sector, the buy side was more active than the sell side. Hiring was predominantly for replacement roles. 

Banks and financial institutions have been exploring the use of AI and the governance around GenAI. We saw a growth in demand within the AI space for Technologists, Product Owners, and strategists. 

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Insurance: 

The insurance sector was fairly active throughout the quarter although not as active as it was in 2022. Hong Kong was more active than Singapore. AIA Group moved to a new headquarters in Wanchai, Hong Kong.  

We wrote an article on the use of AI in the Insurance Domain. If you are interested in it, you could download it here or you could simply reply to this email, and we will send you a PDF copy of the report.

Others:

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We did a podcast with Brian Wong, the 52nd employee of Alibaba, who wrote the book “The Tao of Alibaba”. You can watch it here. 

We sponsored and supported the 9th Cloud Forum, GenAI was the major topic and companies explored various use cases for it within their operations. There was plenty of discussion on how companies were investing in building AI processes to streamline their existing operations.  

Although technology job openings remained sluggish in Hong Kong and Singapore, we observed growing opportunities in Malaysia and in the Middle East. Middle East-based companies can now list in Hong Kong, and Google is investing $2B in Malaysia.  

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We trust this insight will be of value to you. 

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Best Regards,

Vince Natteri, Managing Director

(on behalf of the Pinpoint Asia Recruitment Team)