Online job hiring eases, ends 6-month upswing

Online job hiring in the Philippines ended its sixmonth growth streak after it posted a two percent decline in July, the first time for the year, an online research firm said.

Based on the latest Monster Employment Index (MEI), the July online recruitment figure represented a decrease from the six percent growth in June.

"With growing competition from China’s presence in the global outsourcing sector, outsourcing activities within the Philippines have eased, shaking the nation’s economy and contributing in part to the overall decline in hiring activity," Monster.com managing director for Asia-Pacific and Middle East Sanjay Modi said.

"Weak remittances and trade deficits have weakened the peso value, seeing the currency plunge to an 11-year low and further affecting hiring confidence," he added.

The advertising, market research, public relations, media and entertainment sector fared the worst, with a 17 percent year-on-year decline.

Other industries that registered decline are education, and engineering, construction and real estate.

In terms of occupational groups, human resource and administrative occupations continued to exhibit the steepest decline across all occupational groups, at a 16 percent year-on-year decline.

Purchase, logistics and supply chain also went down 12 percent while marketing communications decreased eight percent.

On the other hand, the retail industry reported the strongest growth at eight percent followed by the banking, financial services and insurance, and business process outsourcing and information technology, both at four percent.

By group, customer service roles continued to take lead in online demand at five percent year-on-year. The group has also recorded consistent positive growth since December 2015.

"Despite being faced with multiple immediate uncertainties, economists remain hopeful about the Philippines’ growth ahead, and this suggests opportunities for foreign firms from the region, such as Singapore, to come in and tap on the nation’s solid resources and infrastructure for commercial activities," he added.

"The Philippines’ retail sector is doing considerably well, and this trend will likely stick through for the months ahead," Modi said.

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 websites and online job listings across the Philippines.