Online hiring efforts in the Philippines, particularly in the business-process outsourcing (BPO), finance and information-technology (IT) sectors, are expected to increase in the January-to-March period, according to Monster.com.
In a statement, Monster.com Apac and Middle East Managing Director Sanjay Modi said local and international demand is “high” for Filipino workers in the BPO sector, while compliance-related roles and investment banking will increase hiring in the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) sector.
Modi added that new employment opportunities created by social cloud and mobile space will drive online hiring in the IT sector.
“Driven mostly by domestic demand, business outputs have remained stable or experienced some growth. As a result, businesses are keen to hire in the country. Many MNCs [multinational corporations] and local businesses have also chosen to set up in the Philippines, and the demand for talent in the work force is expected to see a spike across all levels,” Modi said.
The optimism in the increase in first quarter online hiring activities has been well-supported by the Monster Employment Index (MEI) results in January.
Data showed that online hiring in the country saw a 6-percent year-on-year (YOY) growth last January on the back of a double-digit growth in the BPO sector.
The BPO/Ites sector reported the steepest growth in online hiring at 22 percent between January 2016 and 2017.
Data showed this was higher than the 17 percent recorded last December. This was also the highest growth since May 2016.
“The positive annual growth in January’s online recruitment paints a rosy picture for the days ahead of Philippines’s hiring scene,” Modi said.
Meanwhile, the engineering, construction and real-estate sector reported the sharpest decline in online-hiring activity at a contraction of 6 percent YOY.
When looking at occupational groups, software, hardware and telecom roles took the lead in online demand, reporting a 25-percent YOY growth in January.
This was closely followed by customer-service professionals, which saw a 17-percent YOY growth in online-hiring demand.
Health-care professionals saw the greatest slump in online hiring, reporting a 4-percent year-on-year overall drop.
The MEI Philippines 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.
It 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.