Indonesia's growing prospects

If you are an engineer well-versed in networking technology or an experienced network project manager, chances are you will have little difficulty getting a job in Indonesia this year.

"Indonesia is lacking in [IT workers with] wide area networking (WAN) engineering skills and seasoned project managers who can build large, distributed IT networks," Maneck Mohan, founder of Hong Kong-based job search engine company Recruit.net, told ZDNet Asia in an e-mail interview.

Mohan also noted that Indonesia's job market will continue to grow this year, particularly in the IT infrastructure space which was also the hottest growth area in the country in 2006.

This is fuelled by the country's strengthening economy, which will see the economic growth increase from 5.5 percent in 2006 to an estimated 6.3 percent this year, he added.

"On Recruit.net we are seeing seven to 10 new tech jobs added per day, [although] this is not a fair reflection of the market size as many tech jobs in Indonesia are still only advertised offline in newspapers," Mohan said.

According to the results of ZDNet Asia's IT Salary Benchmark 2006 Survey, servers and networking technologies were also the most-often-cited area of expertise by respondents from Indonesia, unlike the rest of the countries surveyed in across Asia. Of the 650 Indonesian respondents who participated in the study, 48 percent have related experience in the area of servers and networking.

Respondents in the manufacturing, services and non-IT sectors in Indonesia are the highest paid, earning an average salary of IDR 109,460,423 (US$12,041) annually. This is higher than the overall average salary of IDR102,379,052 (US$11,231). This is a second trend that is not seen in the rest of the Asian countries surveyed.

IT management positions command the higher end of the payscale, a trend also seen in the other six countries surveyed. Respondents in Indonesia earn an average salary of IDR 146,401,033 (US$16,060) per annum, 43 percent higher than the overall country average of IDR 102,379,052 (US$11,231). Those in Project Development are the second highest-paid in the country, commanding average annual salaries of IDR 125,506,857 (US$13,768), said the report.

Results of the study also showed that, experience does matter. The average annual salary of respondents from Indonesia with more than 10 years' experience is IDR 182,587,371 (US$20,030), which is 58 percent higher than the overall country average.

Amongst the seven Asian countries surveyed, Indonesia not only had the second-lowest overall average annual salary, it also has the second-lowest proportion of respondents with at least one professional certification, at 34 percent. Not surprising, the most popular certification is Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA), as networking is the area of expertise most cited by Indonesian respondents.

Key findings of ZDNet Asia's IT Salary Benchmark 2006 Survey
ZDNet Asia conducted a survey on the Internet between Aug. 25 and Nov. 6, 2006, to gain insights into Asia's IT workforce and salary trends. The survey drew 5,090 respondents from industry sectors such as government, healthcare, IT, services, telecommunications, legal and finance, across seven Asian countries: Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

Spotlight: Indonesia
The survey drew 650 respondents across several IT positions, which are broadly categorized into IT management, project development and systems development.