Online job hiring spikes 11% in May

MANILA, Philippines - Online job hiring in the Philippines posted its first growth for 2016 at 11 percent in May and is expected to improve further in the coming months, an online research firm said.

Based on the latest Monster Employment Index (MEI), the increase was an improvement following the three percent decline in April 2016.

“As the Philippines continue to position itself as one of Asia’s growth areas, foreign investments are likely to continue to pour into the country to spur growth and hiring,” Monster.com managing director for Southeast Asia Sanjay Modi said.

In particular, the retail sector surged with a 106 percent increase year-on-year in online hiring.

“The Philippines’ retail sector continues to exhibit strong growth partly due to increased consumer spending power, fuelled by increasing income in the BPO (business process outsourcing) sectors,” he said.

Human resource and administration roles registered a 39 percent increase and took the lead among all industry sectors.

Latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed local unemployment stood at 6.1 percent in April 2016, down 0.3 percentage point from April 2015.

Meanwhile, the manufacturing, automotive and ancillary sector is once again the worst performing industry, posting a 34 percent decline during the period.

Hospitality and travel jobs remained the weakest as it a declined 55 percent year-on-year.

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.