Career advancement matter most to people in Asia Pacific, but financial security and networks stand in the way

We believe strongly that access to opportunities should be universal and for everyone, in line with our vision is to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce. In the Asia Pacific region where we now have more than 153 million members, our ultimate goal is to be able to play a part in helping all workers be successful and productive.

With the inaugural LinkedIn Opportunity Index, our aim is better understand the aspirations of people across APAC - specifically, what opportunities are important to them, and the obstacles that may stand in their way. Over time, by tracking these indicators, we hope we can continue to facilitate more of a balance between demand and supply in the opportunity marketplace.

We found that, despite the diversity of the region, there are many similarities in people’s aspirations and the roadblocks they may face. Below are the highlights of the research we have conducted:

Strong desire in APAC for entrepreneurship and learning opportunities

Across APAC, there is strong desire to get ahead in life by advancing one’s career, building one’s own business and acquiring new skills. Of these top three opportunity cited by respondents across the region, the desire to acquire new skills stands out for me particularly. With many news headlines predicting millions of jobs to be displaced by the impact of AI/automation in a matter of years, this data point suggests that people in the region are keen to stay relevant.

Our survey respondents also shared top-of-mind barriers they felt they needed to overcome, in order to access and realise these opportunities. These include one’s financial status, the lack of a strong network, professional skills, direction and guidance and a difficult job market.

Many of us have faced, or continue to face one or more of these challenges. When I relocated to Hong Kong from France some 15 years ago, I discovered just how important it is to build and nurture a locally relevant professional network or community of people who are willing to help one another. Also, it is through my network that I got the opportunity to work for LinkedIn.

In APAC, people in Indonesia and India are most confident about opportunities to get ahead

Across the region, 90% of our respondents believe that diligence is the key to getting ahead in life, followed by having the right connections or knowing the right people, and having equal access to opportunities.

Two rapidly developing markets in the region, Indonesia and India took the top two spots on the Index - driven by people’s confidence in the economic growth potential of these markets as well as their confidence in gaining access to and pursuing opportunities they identified as important.

On the other hand, more developed markets such as Japan, Hong Kong and Australia trailed in the Index, possibly because people in these markets have concerns about the economic outlook of the markets, and generally felt more cautious about their chances of accessing and achieving success with opportunities that are relevant to them.

The good news is that no matter what our individual definition of opportunity is, and what challenges we face, we can count on our community for help. Whether it is learning a new skill, networking or sharing advice, we can all help one another to create and unlock opportunities to advance towards what we want to achieve.

Stay tuned as we continue to share more insights from LinkedIn Opportunity Index in the coming months. We’d love to hear from you about the ultimate opportunity you are after and the challenges you’ve faced. #Opportunity #Barrier #InItTogether

LinkedIn Opportunity Index, a composite measure based on our research, aims to understand how people perceive opportunity and more importantly, barriers that may prevent them from getting to those opportunities. The research surveyed over 11,000 respondents in nine markets in the Asia Pacific region - Australia, Chinese Mainland, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore.