SINGAPORE - It's become a norm for workers to switch jobs every few years, making the lifelong career in one organisation a thing of the past in Singapore and Hong Kong.

That's according to human resources firm Randstad's latest Workmonitor Research for the April to June quarter, which found that 73 per cent of employees globally felt that a "job-for-life" was all but extinct.

But this sentiment was much higher across the region with 83 per cent of those polled in Singapore and Hong Kong feeling that life-long jobs no longer existed. In Malaysia, 76 per cent of employees felt the same way.

Mr Michael Smith, managing director for Randstad Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia, attributed the demise of lifelong jobs and careers to the growing willingness of employees to move across organisations and specialisations to define their own career paths based on their own requirements.

Ranstad's Workmonitor covers 34 countries in Asia Pacific, Europe and Americas. It's Mobility Index tracks job market sentiments and employee trends each quarter.

The current study was conducted through an online questionnaire involving 400 interviews of paid employees aged 18-65 per country.