High salaries plus growth potential draw expats to Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia is becoming the new magnet for expat professionals due to its growth potential and generous salaries.

Singapore is a special favourite with expat jobseekers in the financial sector. as the city-state is becoming known as the region’s answer to Wall Street. Professionals with the right degrees and experience in institutions such as the World Bank are being offered positions in investment banking and other niche high-level financial specialisations.

It helps that the Singaporean government is expat-friendly and top salaries are being enhanced by networking opportunities and top-level learning. In a recent survey undertaken by a major Southeast Asian employment portal, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand are all favourite destinations for the global workforce and are attracting the brightest and best talents from the region as well as from the West. ASEAN’s establishment of its economic community in 2015 is another attraction for skilled workers as it integrated the entire regional economy and encouraged free movement of highly skilled professionals within the entire region.

Importantly, ASEAN’s Mutual Recognition Arrangement make it far easier for regional job seekers in sectors including medicine, dentistry, engineering, accountancy, tourism and the construction industry to have their qualifications and experience accepted by other regional hubs. Even so, the main draw is the higher starting salaries and opportunities for advancement to even higher rates of pay. The high-tech sector is another popular target, as major international companies such as Google and Facebook now established in Hong Kong, Singapore and even Thailand.

The movement of talented expat professionals isn’t just a one-way street, as Southeast Asian countries and Vietnam in particular are the source for a good number of talented young expats eager to gain overseas work experience. As larger Vietnamese companies are now expanding into major cities worldwide, the fast-growing country is seeing the value of its returning expats and taking full advantage of their international mindsets as well as their job experience and understanding of foreign cultures.