KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 17 — New job postings in Malaysia rose sharply in the last quarter as more multinational firms responded to Putrajaya’s efforts to make doing business here easier, recruitment consultancy Robert Walters said today.

Of the six Asian markets surveyed in the agency’s job index for the fourth quarter last year, Malaysia recorded the biggest jump in the number of new jobs being advertised, up by 48 per cent compared to the same period in 2013.

In Robert Walters’ index titled “Asia at a glance”, Japan came second at 42 per cent owing to improved business confidence, while Singapore and China grew at 23 per cent and 19 per cent, respectively, owing to increased regulatory requirements and growth in online retail.

Hong Kong and South Korea trailed behind at 15 per cent and three per cent, with their growth buoyed by companies replacing underperformers with professionals and positive policy changes by the government respectively.

The professional recruitment consultancy said Asia had an overall increase of 18 per cent in job advertisement figures, chalking it down to greater business confidence as more multinationals set up shop in the region.

Sally Raj, managing director of Robert Walters Malaysia, similarly attributed the country’s status as one of the fastest growing markets in Southeast Asia to Putrajaya’s success in drawing in more multinationals.

“The government’s initiatives to strengthen infrastructure and increase business operational efficiency continues to attract increasing numbers of multinationals to the country. This explains the encouraging increases in job advertising volumes we have seen across 2014,” she was quoted saying in the report.

Sally noted that companies are both continuously trying to hire “top talent” while also coming out with “very strong retention strategies to keep their best performers”.

She added that companies have already expressed concerns over the Goods and Services Tax (GST) that Putrajaya will roll out this April, saying that this would make this year an “interesting year”.

For Malaysia, Robert Walters said there was a shortage of technically skilled job applicants as advertising of job openings for IT candidates went up by 75 per cent, while recruitment for those in the accounting and finance and also marketing went up by 63 per cent and 55 per cent respectively.

The increase in job advertisements for logistics to 33 per cent from 2013 was driven by Malaysia’s emerging status as a key regional hub for manufacturing and logistics.

The “strong” 31 per cent boost in retail job postings is due to the opening up of new malls and new international brands entering Malaysia, Robert Walters said, saying that this was particularly marked for the luxury and mass labels.

Robert Walters, which has offices in 24 countries and regions, said it compiled the Asia Job Index by tracking advertising volumes for recruitments in national newspapers and leading job boards in the six region.