The commerce & industry human resources sector has experienced much change in recent years, with HR functions across all industries continuing to undergo transformations to meet the changing needs and expectations of local businesses.

Our commerce HR & administration team possesses consultants with several years of HR industry and recruitment experience within the commercial sector. This gives us a unique insight into the requirements of our clients and hence we have become increasingly known as the recruitment supplier of choice for manufacturing and service companies throughout Japan.

Although we continue to recruit for HR generalist roles, we have seen an increased demand for more specialised HR positions in staffing, learning and development, compensation and benefits, and employee relations. We are also seeing a higher demand for high quality secretarial and administrational support candidates from all of our clients and this is an area of our business we will be looking to further develop in 2007.

Over the last 12 months we have successfully introduced opportunities to a large number of HR professionals in industries ranging from manufacturing to hi-tech, and fashion to entertainment. The healthcare industry in particular has recently been experiencing rapid growth, resulting in a positive correlation in the demand for HR and administration professionals in this sector.

Having expanded our HR team this year we are in a strong position to offer our clients a wider range of high calibre candidates. Moving forward, we are committed to building on our success and promoting the area of secretarial support and administration, as well as expanding our expertise to include inhouse legal roles, where we forecast there will be an increased demand during 2007.

Market Overview

The demand for experienced HR professionals has continued to grow over the last year with companies acutely aware of the importance of having a strong HR function within their business. The HR department is now recognised as a valuable business partner to the other key divisions in an organisation, such as sales, marketing and finance. Furthermore, to be considered a good HR team it is necessary to not only recruit high-potential candidates, but also to retain the most talented employees.

As companies move away from the old style HR Administration and General Affairs Divisions, we are also seeing an increased demand for specialists in the key areas of recruitment, compensation and benefits, and training and development. The demand for bilingual candidates is as high as ever and this has continued to contribute to the more competitive salary levels that these candidates are attracting. The acute desire to improve the quality of HR functions has contributed to making an already candidate short market hugely competitive, creating what has been described as a ‘war for talent’.

We expect the movement we saw in the market in 2006 to continue into 2007 and as such, the outlook is highly encouraging for 2007.

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Robert Walters is a leading international recruitment consultancy, placing high calibre professionals into permanent, contract and temporary positions at all levels of seniority. With a developed network of 27 offices across 14 countries, we work with leading investment banks, multinational corporations, smaller enterprises, business start-ups and the public sector.

Every year we produce a comprehensive Global Salary Survey to provide you with information about salary packages and the latest market trends across an extensive range of market sectors including:

Accounting & Finance • Banking • Human Resources • Information Technology • Legal & Compliance • Sales & Marketing • Secretarial & Support