Economic growth in the Philippines is experiencing a slowdown as the recent World Bank forecast revealed a 5.8% growth rate for 2019, falling below the government’s growth projection of 6–7% for the year, and the effect of the unexpected slump can be seen in the labor economy. This includes e-recruitment sentiment, which experienced a decline in demand growth in Q3, with 13%, 10% and 12% year-on-year growth for July, August and September, respectively – lower than growth numbers in the first half of the year.
Despite the overall slowdown, certain sectors did experience increased growth in online hiring demand during Q3. The most notable was the Advertising & Marketing industry, which consistently witnessed strong growth throughout the quarter, charting 26% year-on-year in both July and September, and 20% in the month of August.
The BPO/ITES sector also experienced an e-recruitment demand in the previous quarter, peaking in August with 21% year-on-year growth, followed by 18% for both July and September. The BFSI, IT/Telecom and Consumer Goods industries also ranked among top growth sectors for online hiring demand in Q3.
When looking at specific occupations, HR & Admin professionals came out on top with an impressive 35% year-on-year increase for September – the steepest growth recorded for this job role since December 2018. The year-on-year growth recorded for July and August was 31% and 29% respectively.
Finance & Accounts talent were also in surging demand during the quarter, charting year-on-year growth numbers of 28%, 24% and 23% for the months of July, August and September, respectively. Professionals in Marketing & Communications and Software, Hardware, Telecom roles also witnessed consistently strong demand during Q3, ranking among the top growing occupations for the period.
“Global trade tensions, together with the nation’s political landscape are affecting the Filipino economy and resulting in a weak outlook, with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund’s predictions that the Philippines will likely not hit its 2019 GDP growth targets. This impacts online recruitment sentiment, too. Although still positive overall, hiring has been slowing, as marked by the declining growth in the latest quarter after months of a strong upward trajectory late last year,” said Krish Seshadri, CEO of Monster.com – APAC and Middle East.
While Filipino businesses and regulators need to step up and start taking active measures to resolve this situation by improving economic openness, employers should focus on staff retention and retraining, so as to build stronger teams in order to weather out any potential rough patch ahead.”
The Monster Employment Index 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. 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.
