02 October 2008: Qualified professionals are needed in all sectors, but higher education institutions can’t follow
(Photo: Behind the statue of Lady Penh, the legendary founder of Phnom Penh, the city’s first skyscraper is being built. 22 August 2008. By Isabelle Roughol)
By Isabelle Roughol
Qualified accountants are a hot commodity in the Cambodian job market as rapid economic growth has introduced the demand for new kinds of professionals, industry experts say.
The demand is fueled by the increasing openness of the national economy and the arrival of firms that require more than the typical bookkeeping operations, accounting industry insiders said.
“In the short term, [demand for accountants] is going to grow faster than the rate of economic growth” by 5 to 8 percentage points, predicted Casey Barnett, managing director of CamEd, an accounting school in Phnom Penh. “After a five-year horizon, it’s going to move along with the economy.”
“I think a certain set of skills were OK 10 years ago,” said David Symanski, recruiting manager at HR Inc Cambodia, which hires accountants and other professionals for third-party firms. “Now there are a lot of Fortune 500 companies coming to Cambodia, and they expect people to be able to do everything very well,” including tax issues, government auditing, team management and excellent English.
The pool of people fitting that description in Cambodia is still too shallow, he said.
“In the US, you might have one accounting jobs and 10 people going for it. Here it’s almost the opposite; you’d have 10 jobs trying to catch the same guy,” Symanski said.
Schools are trying to play catch-up with the demand, and student enrollment in accounting programs is rising.
Hin Sopheat, manager in Cambodia for the UK-based Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, said more than 1,000 students are registered with the ACCA in Cambodia, up from about 800 last year.
At CamEd, the only school in Cambodia that teaches to the ACCA exam, the number of students went from 300 a year ago to 500 now, Barnett said. His target is to reach 1,000 students next year, he added.
“Accounting has been and still remains a very popular major for students,” said Stephen Paterson, adviser and lecturer at National University of Management. “Accounting has always been one of those areas were people feel it’s easy to find a job,” he added.
That is why 23-year-old Seng Vanda, a fourth year student at Norton University, chose accounting.
“I believe Norton University provides a good quality [education] to me, and I believe in my ability to find a good job,” she said, echoing the thoughts of other students interviewed.
But many universities do not teach the international standards required by global firms and adopted as Cambodian national standards in 2005.
“In some ways the education systems are a little bit behind in bringing up the skills that are required for the job market,” Paterson said.
“We’re working with the ACCA to reform the curriculum to make it more relevant to the companies’ needs,” he added.
Hin Sopheat confirmed the ACCA was working with several major universities but said the process was long and declined to offer a date for when the new curriculums might be ready.
Problems are compounded by universities’ hesitancy to fail students or be more selective about professors, according to Barnett of CamEd.
“Each university is providing very good accountants and very bad accountants,” he said. “There is no university that’s providing better quality control,” thus making degrees a poor estimate of actual skills.
Meanwhile, top students reap the benefits of the shortage.
“For someone who’s that good, you’re probably looking at $1,200 to $2,000 [pay per month] at the level that [an employer] who’s coming in from Japan…would expect,” Symanski said.
“Across the board, there’s a demand for accountants, but there’s a demand for everything, from very good salespeople to IT. Everything is growing here,” he said, adding he even had requests for illustrators. “When people are looking to hire artists, I think that’s a good sign for the economy.”
Additional reporting by Cheng Sokhorng
