The Philippines reported a 40-percent annual drop in online hiring activities in February this year. According to the latest Monster Employment Index (MEI) Philippines, this represented a 7-percent decline from a 33-percent annual dip registered in January 2016.
Tracked by employment web site Monster.com, the MEI Philippines is a gauge of online job-posting activity, recording the industries and occupations that show the highest and lowest growth in recruitment activity locally.
In February the Banking, Financial Services and Insurance sector reported the sharpest growth in online hiring, at 1 percent year-over-year, down from 13-percent decline year-over-year registered in January 2016. The sector is once again the only sector to exhibit positive annual growth in e-recruitment.
The Production/Manufacturing, Automotive and Ancillary sector continues to exhibit the greatest decline among the industry sectors, reporting a whopping 67-percent year-over-year decline.
Across all occupational groups monitored by the index, online demand for customer-service professionals takes lead at 9-percent growth year-over-year. Despite the marginal 2-percent drop from 11 percent year-over-year reported between January 2015 and 2016, the group remains the only job role seeing positive growth in online demand.
For the seventh consecutive month, hospitality and travel roles saw the steepest decline in online demand among the
occupational groups. In February it reported a 76-percent drop year-over-year, further falling from 65 percent year-over-year recorded in January 2016.
“The overall dip in online hiring is a reflection of the weakened global economic growth performance, likely caused by the nation’s declining export sales which has impacted the Manufacturing sector. On a positive note, Philippines’s economy appears to be growing well above average when compared to its peers in the region, remaining an attractive spot for foreign investors that could spur hiring activities in the coming months,” said Sanjay Modi, managing director of Monster.com (India, Middle East, Southeast Asia and Hong Kong).
“Demands for customer service employees are expected to continue to grow as more foreign BPO [business-process outsourcing] firms set up their companies here in Philippines and expand their work force. The recent lifting of the ban on the grant of licenses for the establishment of new banks across the country, is also expected to help fuel job openings, as more businesses in the finance sector open up.”
The MEI is a monthly gauge of online job-posting activity, based on a real-time review of millions of employer job opportunities culled from a large representative selection of career web sites and online job listings across the Philippines. The index does not reflect the trend of any one advertiser or source, but is an aggregate measure of the change in job listings across the industry.