As arguably the wealth management capital of Asia, Singapore's compliance and legal job market witnessed a surge in ad volumes in the final three months of last year, highlighting regulatory increases.

Job advertising volumes for Singapore-based compliance and legal jobs skyrocketed by 64 per cent in the final three months of 2014 from a year earlier, as regulatory pressures mounted on sectors such as wealth management, new figures show.

The Asian city-state was confronted with an “acute talent crunch”, driving ads for human resources professionals, where ad volumes surged by 48 per cent year-on-year, Robert Walters, the international recruitment firm, said in a regular overview of the Asian employment market.

The data would seem to confirm anecdotal evidence seen by this publication about a boom in compliance-related jobs and the salaries of such positions. As financial markets have been affected by a wave of regulatory action and scandals such as benchmark-rigging and money laundering, so demand for such positions has also surged.

Singapore is way ahead of the rest of Asia for such compliance and legal ad volume growth. Throughout the whole of Asia, the report said, advertising volume for jobs in legal and compliance functions rose by 10 per cent in the final three months of 2014 from the same period a year before. Accounting and finance job ad volumes rose 27 per cent in Asia, the firm said.

The Robert Walters Asia Job Index tracks job advertising volumes for professional positions across the leading job boards and national newspapers in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia and Singapore.

“The country has held its placement as one of the key financial services hubs in the region. While we have seen some offshoring of the back office functions to more cost-effective locations, there has been noteworthy growth in the insurance and asset management sectors. Singapore will remain a local candidate-driven market for the foreseeable future. In order to counter this, companies are putting down measures to attract talent with emphasis on retention, development and competitive remuneration,” Toby Fowlston, managing director, Robert Walters Southeast Asia, said in the report.

In China, accounting and finance job ad volumes rose 26 per cent year-on-year. In Hong Kong, a rival wealth management hub to Singapore, such ads rose by a robust 43 per cent, the report added.