The digitization trend spurred by the global pandemic continued to drive the demand for data protection officers (DPOs) among companies in Asia, a research firm said.
In its annual survey of data protection-related jobs available in Singapore, the Data Protection Excellence (DPEX) Centre said it found a 54 percent year-on-year increase by companies advertising for the role of Data Protection Officer (DPO) this year.
DPEX said an estimated 3,700 data protection-related jobs were created in 2021, amid uncertain Covid-19 conditions, new data protection laws in the region, and increasing requirements for the appointment of a DPO.
Key findings of the survey also showed that 9 in 10 of the vacancies were permanent positions, and that about half of the data protection jobs were managerial positions and above.
The top three industries hiring data protection expertise were Business Services (including accounting, consulting, and legal), Banking and Financial Services, and IT-related companies.
“The strong demand for data protection expertise will likely continue in the next few years as countries like China, Indonesia and Thailand roll out their new data protection laws, all of which have requirements for a data protection officer or related roles,” Straits Interactive CEO Kevin Shepherdson said in a statement.
“We, therefore, expect a shortage for such expertise, aggravated by ongoing data and privacy breaches, as well as continuing Covid-19 conditions.”
Overall, demand for all jobs requiring data protection expertise increased by 26 percent in 2021, compared to 106 percent in the previous year. The research firm said the strong growth in 2020 was a “knee-jerk” response by companies rushing to hire data protection roles.
DPEX Centre is the research and education arm of the DPEX Network, a first-of-its-kind facility in the Asean region whose aim is to provide leadership, best practices, training, research, and support for all things surrounding data privacy from an operational perspective.