CAREERS MEDIA: Talent crunch in Asia-Pacific hits new crisis levels

The Asia-Pacific talent crunch of experienced advertising personnel has reached crisis proportions in some agencies. The dire situation has been caused by the upswing in the economy and the rapid growth of the Internet industry. Two agencies said that they had more than 10 top-level regional vacancies to fill, while three others said that if they were to get any more new accounts, they would be forced into a desperate scramble for people. In order to prevent their directorate level staff from leaving for the client side or dotcoms, some agencies have had to give salary increases in excess of 30 per cent. And at Ogilvy & Mather, the search for experienced talent has been widened to include Eastern Europe and Russia. The agency has already hired a Mexican to fill a vacancy in Indonesia and a Colombian in Singapore. "When Asia was last growing in the mid-1990s, the US and UK - the major source of expat labour - were not doing so well, but we cannot find the quality of people from there anymore," O&M regional chairman Miles Young told MEDIA. "Their economies have become supercharged because of the dotcoms and the best talents have been taken up." Grey regional CEO Jonathan Fox said the situation was exacerbated by the fact that experienced Asian advertising professionals were hard to come by. But he stressed that this was not because the talent pool here was small. "There are a lot of talented people in Asia. The problem is that they are not in the advertising industry. "Many years ago, the industry was considered hot and sexy. Young, local talent not courted by the leading companies would actively consider advertising as a career. But not anymore, because compensation has hit the wall," he said. A major part of the problem emanated from dotcoms poaching people from agencies. However, pressure is also being exerted by the client side as they expand their advertising and communications functions. Agencies said that they could not compete against the salaries and stock options offered by dotcoms. But they stated that they were fighting back on qualitative aspects - seminars, training, career prospects and office environment. Said Mr Fox, "The enticements outside the industry are enormous so increasing people's salaries by 10 per cent or 50 per cent means nothing. So we have to find other ways to attract and keep staff."

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