HIRING activities on the web grew in the Philippines by 6 percent in June 2017 from the same period last year on the back of the strength of growth industries that continue to propel the country’s economy.
The results showed the sixth positive annual growth for the country since January of this year. Compared to a total of 97 job listings in June 2016, last month had 103.
“The Philippines has been on an upward economic trend for some time now, and this doesn’t look likely to slow down. In fact, Moody’s Investor rating has suggested positive economic performance in the months ahead, thanks to the nation’s robust private consumption, as well as the healthy BPO [business-process outsourcing] sector,” said Sanjay Modi, managing director of Monster.com–Asia Pacific and the Middle East.
“Manufacturing, BPO and agricultural sectors are likely to be the key driving forces behind the Philippines’s booming economy, in line with the country’s nation reform plans,” he added.
Based on the latest report of Monster Employment Index (MEI), there’s no stopping the BPOand information technology-enabled services (BPO/ITES) sector as the top employment provider for the month of June this year, with 132 job placements online, or 18 percent higher than 112 in the same period in 2016.
This is 12 percent lower, however, than the 30 percent YOY increase in this sector reported in May.
There are currently 1.2 million people employed in the BPO sector. As per the Information Technology-Business Process Association of the Philippines (IT-BPAP) Roadmap 2022 report, their number is expected to grow further to 1.8 million in the next five years.
Still in the second slot for the top growth industries, logistics, courier, freight, transportation, import, export and shipping rose by 15 percent, from 111 to 128.
This was followed by retail, up 13 percent, from 120 to 135; banking, financial services and insurance, or BFSI, up 8 percent, from 113 to 122. Hospitality came in at the fifth spot, with a hike of 5 percent, from 103 to 108.
Consumer goods/fast-moving consumer goods, food and packaged food, home appliance, garments/textiles/leather, gems and jewelry continued to belong to the sectors with snail-pace growth at 2 percent only, from 84 to 86; and production/manufacturing, automotive and ancillary, up 1 percent, from 88 to 89.
Registering negative 1-percent growth were advertising, market research, public relations, media and entertainment, from 110 to 109; as well as health care, from 96 to 95. The engineering, construction and real-estate sector recorded the sharpest fall at -9 percent, from 89 to 81.
As regards the occupational groups monitored by the index, customer service talents continued to be in-demand as they led in online hiring, from 115 to 145, or 26-percent YOY growth.
While posting only a slight growth of 1 percent, sales and business developments (from 100 to 101), as well as software, hardware and telecom (from 113 to 114) remained on the lookout for new recruits.
Less in-demand jobs were health care, -2 percent, from 95 to 93; hospitality and travel, -2 percent, from 84 to 82; marketing and communications, -3 percent, from 118 to 115; engineering, production and real estate, -6 percent, from 87 to 82; and human resources and admin, -13 percent, from 111 to 97.
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 nation.