More than half, or 58%, of companies in Asia Pacific look to hire contingent workforce employees to help with headcount shortages, according to a report from PersolKelly.

The highest adoption of a contingent workforce was reported by companies in Indonesia (67%), Hong Kong (66%), Malaysia (64%) and Singapore (60%).

The report found that 46% of companies in Asia used contingent workers for up to 10% of their workforce.  At the same time, nearly a quarter of all companies use a contingent workforce for more than 20% of their staffing needs, with the highest adoption seen in Indonesia (32%), India (31%), Vietnam (25%) and Thailand (25%). In Indonesia, nearly half of all companies report that 20% or more of their employees are engaged under contingent workforce arrangements.

PersolKelly noted that the trend for companies adopting a contingent workforce as part of their future workforce strategy is accelerating. Indonesia (62%) led the way in terms of companies expanding their contingent workforce to 15% and above in the next two years.

The most common reason for businesses to adopt a contingent workforce is the flexibility that it offers for workforce planning, making it easier to upsize or downsize as required. On average 55% of companies surveyed across the region stated this as their top reason. This was driven by companies in Vietnam (67%) and India (63%).

The second top reason to adopt a Contingent Workforce is to help fill specialised roles to ensure no disruption to operations and the business overall. On average, 51% of companies stated this reason, with the highest responses in Singapore (66%) and Vietnam (63%).

Overall, the sectors most in favour of a Contingent Workforce are IT/hi-tech, healthcare/pharmaceutical, fast moving consumer goods, logistics/supply chain, financial institutions/banking, professional services/consultancy, manufacturing and government/statutory agency.

The majority of companies use internal hiring, referrals, job advertisements for their primary source of candidates with PersolKelly noting that companies are leaning towards engaging recruitment agencies to source contingent workers.

Meanwhile 74% of Asia Pacific companies surveyed say they are likely to reward contingent workers in the same way or better than full-time staff.