The Philippines reported 11% year-over-year increase in hiring activities in IT, Telecom/ISP and BPO/ITES sector, the steepest growth recorded among the three Southeast Asian markets monitored by the Monster Employment Index (MEI). This is the market’s first positive growth recorded since January 2016. Month-on-month hiring activities have also been seeing slow but steady growth.
“The Philippines’ attractive labour market has been a key catalyst to growing hiring numbers across most sectors, including IT-related sectors,” says Sanjay Modi, Managing Director, Monster.com (India, Middle East, Southeast Asia, Hong Kong). “In the coming months, demands for BPO-IT professionals and web developers are likely to continue to soar.”
The other two markets are Singapore and Malaysia. The index records the industries and occupations that show the highest and lowest growth in recruitment activity, including data from the IT sectors.
Malaysia exhibited -11% year-over-year drop in hiring activities. Despite the dip, the market’s pace of decline has eased up since the start of the year. Like the Philippines, its month-on-month hiring activities have seen slight growth.
Singapore’s annual growth in hiring activities has been fluctuating, seeing a marginal 1% growth between April 2015 and 2016. This is an 8% dip from 9% year-over-year growth recorded in March.
When looking at Software, Hardware and Telecom roles, none of the markets witnessed positive growth in hiring demand between April 2015 and 2016. The group saw the steepest drop in demand in Malaysia, which reported a -39% annual decline.
Singapore recorded -4% year-over-year decline in job demands, the least among the three markets. The role is also amongst the occupations recording the least decline in the market. Philippines followed closely behind at -5% year-over-year growth, a 23% leap from -28% year-over-year reported in March.
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. The Index 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.
