Amid the pandemic, how has tech talent relocation changed in the Asia Pacific?

Like everything else in our lives, the relocation job market has been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Companies usually tend to recruit from abroad when they are unable to find the right talent locally, but the pandemic has forced many businesses, including those located in the Asia-Pacific region, to put their international hiring plans on hold. Measures in place to combat the illness, such as complete lockdowns and restrictions on the entry of foreigners, are some of the reasons.

The pandemic has also greatly affected startups like our firm Relocate.me, which aims to help employers attract talent from beyond their borders. In spring 2020, most companies froze all their hiring activities, so job posting subscriptions also ceased. The market only started to revive last September.

The current state of affairs

Some countries in the region have already begun to ease entry restrictions for foreign nationals because of a shortfall in skilled workers. In Australia, for instance, 17 occupations were exempted from the immigration ban, with software engineers and developers/programmers among them.

In Singapore, companies can request entry approval from the Ministry of Manpower to bring their foreign hires and work pass holders into the country. That said, the demand for international talent from employers still hasn’t returned to pre-pandemic levels, but the number of businesses unfreezing international recruiting is steadily growing. Here’s a small selection of the Asia Pacific-based tech companies that are actively hiring foreign talent right now:

• Australia: Linktree, Canva, and Airtasker
• Japan: Mercari, SmartNews, PayPay, Line, Hengge, and Pretia Technologies
• Singapore: ByteDance, BandLab, and Ninja Van
• Thailand: Agoda and Seven Peaks Software
• Malaysia: iPrice Group

Despite the rise of remote work and ongoing lockdowns, job seekers’ interest in gaining new work experiences abroad has also started to bounce back.

Relocation destination choices

According to our data, Australia leads the list of Asia Pacific’s most desirable tech job relocation destinations, with every second international job seeker considering it as a work abroad location. The country consistently ranks as one of the best places in the world to live and work, so this isn’t much of a surprise.

With 3,162 votes out of 7,000, New Zealand is a close second, followed by Singapore in third place.

The combination of an excellent quality of life, world-class infrastructure, a massive number of promising startups and leading technology companies, low personal income tax rates, and a very high English language proficiency level make Singapore attractive for foreign techies.

The list has remained exactly the same since the beginning of 2019, with only some internal shuffling.

The countries people are looking to leave

Among the locations that tech workers are looking to move out of in 2021, India takes the top spot on the list for the fourth year in a row. The current pandemic situation in the country and its population size are probable factors.

According to the most recent United Nations International Migration Report, 18 million Indians live outside of their country of birth. Among non-Asian countries, Nigeria (756), Russia (734), Brazil (387), Argentina (339), and the US (315) have the most significant number of international job seekers.

Changes in cross-border recruitment