RECRUITMENT via online continues to be on the downside in the Philippines, registering -31 percent year-over-year (YOY) growth between August 2014 and August 2015, according to the latest Monster Employment Index (MEI) by Monster.com.
While this remains in a negative trend, it is an increase from the -36-percent decline YOY reported for the month of July.
The MEI is a gauge of online job-posting activity in accordance to 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 nation.
“This is based on an aggregate measure of the change in the online job listings across industries in the Philippines,” Monster.com Managing Director for India, Middle East, Southeast Asia and Hong Kong Sanjay Modi told the BusinessMirror in an e-mail interview.
Although there has been a negative growth in both periods in review, he said that online postings still remain the largest repository of available job opportunities and are an indirect reflection of employment or hiring trends.
Among the 10 industries monitored, the information technology (IT), telecom and Internet service provider sector recorded the most significant growth at 10 percent YOY.
This is a leap from last month’s 7-percent growth over the periods in review, and is also the sector’s third positive growth reported since June 2015.
Coming in just next to it was finance services and insurance at 2 percent after registering consecutive yearly declines since March 2015.
Meanwhile, the business-process outsourcing and IT-enabled services industry remained flat at 0 percent. The production/manufacturing, automotive and ancillary sector continued registering the worst at -62 percent YOY. It, likewise, registered its lowest activity since
January 2015.
“The Philippine Statistics Authority saw continual contractions in Philippines’s manufacturing sectors due to weakening global demands. This has likely played a role in the decline in hiring across the production/manufacturing, automotive and ancillary sector, as seen in the Index,” Modi noted.
That being said, it’s also a key area the government is actively working to improve on to bolster the country’s economy and hiring activities may rise by end of the year to keep up with upcoming demands, he added.