By Annie Dang

The Asian legal job market is on the road to recovery according to recent figures released by the Robert Walters Asia Job Index for Q1 2010.

The Index which tracks the number of advertisements for professional positions across leading online job boards and national newspapers in Hong Kong, Singapore, China and Japan, revealed a marginal 0.2 per cent drop in ads compared with Q4 2009 figures but an overall increase of 46% since Q1 2009.

The Singapore job market showed the most improvement with job ads for the merchandising/ purchasing and lawyer/ legal sectors increasing 119 per cent and 120 per cent respectively over Q4 2009. 

“[Singapore] has been on a healthy recovery since the start of 2010.The increase in job advertisements in Q4 2009 could be due to a knee jerk reaction in conjunction with other industries relaxing their headcount restrictions,” said Jasmine Sim, legal division consultant for Roberts Walters Singapore’s office.

“In light of the recent crisis, we expect more activities in the area of restructuring as well as merger & acquisition will continue to take place and grow,” said Sim.

Despite being out performed by Singapore, Hong Kong has also shown steady improvement in recruitment activity from the start of 2010 and the trend is expected to continue. 

“[Hong Kong] has witnessed key areas of growth in corporate and corporate finance at all levels due to an increase in IPO activity and Hong Kong being China’s premier listing location, and will continue to benefit from the mainland’s aggressive growth,” said Ricky Mui, Legal division Manager at Roberts Walters Hong Kong office.