As employers across the Asia Pacific region implemented cost-cutting solutions to counter pandemic-related revenue shortfalls, finances have become prominent in the minds of employees. However, according to Hays, employees are not confident that they will see salary packages augmented in 2021, with 28% predicting that their salaries will remain the same, double that of the previous year.

Hays’ survey data which includes data from China, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia and Singapore, found that 4% of employees predict pay cuts. Employees in China (39%) were the most confident of receiving increases of more than 10%, followed by Malaysia (17%), though 6% of professionals in Malaysia and Japan predict decreases.

In 2020, 12% of Asia’s employees received pay cuts or demotions in 2020, a figure rising to 13% in Malaysia, 70% of whom were compensated by reduced working hours. In Singapore, 11% of employees saw cutbacks, 65% of whom received no compensation at all.  Meanwhile, job candidates selected ‘salaries’ as the most preferred reason for choosing a new employer (58%), with candidates in China (69%) and Hong Kong (64%) most concerned about income.

Nearly half, or 49%, of professionals staying with their current employers do so for salary purposes, an increase from 40% in 2020. Employees in Malaysia were the most preoccupied with salaries (57%), followed by those in Hong Kong (52%).

Although ‘work-life’ balance was the second most-preferred option for professionals looking to stay with their employer, a higher percentage of responders selected it in 2021 (48%) than the year before (43%), with those in Japan, citing work-life balance as their primary concern (53%).

2021 sees Asia’s professionals feeling less positive about the balance between work and life, as 46% said that their work-life balance was either good or very good, down from 50% in 2020.

Though employees in China and Singapore were the most positive about their work life balance (50% and 47% respectively), in Japan 14% said that their balance was poor, with a further 5% saying that it was very poor.

This comes at a time when a growing number of professionals are spending more time working from home, with 57% of organisations offering remote working in 2021, a leap from 31% the year before. Meanwhile, working professionals are spending less time enhancing skills, with 36% spending just one to two hours a week outside of their job upskilling and 21% doing no improvement at all, up from 35% and 19% in 2020.