Abstract

Singapore is well positioned as a key business and financial hub in Southeast Asia. The business-friendly environment makes it attractive to corporations ranging from Fortune 500 multinationals to start-ups. The Singapore government is also working towards a vision to make Singapore the global accountancy hub by the year 2020. These factors have created strong demand for well-qualified accountancy professionals. As the profession continues to grow, there will be a significant demand for accounting education to train more qualified accountants. The annual cohort of accounting graduates from local universities has been stretched to meet the demands for talent. Accounting and finance recruitment in Singapore saw an 18 per cent increase in the number of job vacancies advertised in the first quarter of 2015, according to research from the Robert Walters Asia Jobs Index (Kan, 2015).