Employees in Malaysia and Singapore Ranked As UNHAPPIEST in Asia

In the competitive workforce of today, employers are all fighting for the best employee and would pay big money to retain the valuable ones. Therefore job satisfaction and attrition rate have become an important metric to many large corporations.

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In a recent survey conducted by JobStreet, the scenery looks bleak as Malaysia and Singapore have returned ranking last respectively on a 10-point job satisfaction scale, reports Human Resources. This clearly shows money isn’t everything.

According to Today Online, Singapore with a total of 3,398 respondents came in last with a meager rating of 5.09, while Malaysia narrowly avoiding the last place with a 5.22 rating.

The survey was conducted across 7 countries and with over 67,000 respondents that made up the 10-point ranking as below.

1. Philippines (6.25)
2. Indonesia (6.16)
3. Thailand (5.74)
4. Hong Kong (5.56)
5. Vietnam (5.48)
6. Malaysia (5.22)
7. Singapore (5.09)

With the new political ruling and issues with the ongoing drug war, people hadn’t expected the Philippines to top the chart.

Through some analysis, it was found that Malaysia, Singapore, and Hong Kong share the same causes for job dissatisfaction — poor leadership/management, poor training, and lack of career development or promotions.

Similarly, these 3 countries have the same factors that attributed to the happiness of the employees — the company’s reputation, convenience in location, and good relationship with co-workers.

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While Singapore holds the biggest lot of unhappy workers, it was revealed that the results are predicted to drop even further in the coming 6 months to a pathetic 4.93.

Through the survey, respondents from Singapore have expressed that job satisfaction would probably increase by getting a new job (30%), having a higher pay (19%), and receiving rewards and recognition for good performance (9%). Presumably the same case for Malaysians.

The poor result from both these neighbouring countries have also spawn job portals to encourage employers to “address the factors causing employee dissatisfaction”. So let’s hope employers change for a better working culture and in turn, a happier working environment.

Another thing that was noted is providing employees with a safe environment to voice their feedbacks and concerns. 

With both Malaysia and Singapore as the bottom pair, it only proves that there is need for more improvement made in the working environment for these two countries.