More firms to increase workforce this year

MANILA, Philippines—More companies intend to hire additional workers in the months ahead as a means to cope with an expected increase in demand for their goods and services amid a likely faster growth of the economy, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said.

Citing results of one of its latest surveys, conducted between January 6 and February 14, the BSP said the employment outlook index, which indicates the intention of firms in the country to expand their workforce in the coming quarter, settled at a favorable +24 percent.

This was better than the +16.8 percent registered in the survey three months ago and the +23 percent obtained from the survey conducted a year ago.

A positive index means the percentage of respondent-firms that cited plans to hire more workers in the coming quarter exceeds those that do not have such plans.

Intentions to hire workers are seen to help reduce the country’s unemployment rate, which stood at 6.4 percent in end-October last year.

“Favorable employment prospects are anticipated across sectors, as companies gear up for the expected pickup in demand,” the BSP said in the report.

According to the central bank, the plans to hire more workers were cited by respondent-firms together with their intention to expand operations in the second quarter.

BSP Deputy Governor Diwa Guinigundo said the results of the survey substantiated projections that the Philippines could accelerate growth this year despite the problems confronting the global economy due to the debt crisis in Europe.

Guinigundo said the BSP concurred with forecasts that the eurozone might enter into a mild recession this year. He said such an event would have a dampening effect on growth of the Philippines, but added that there were favorable factors to offset the ill-effects of the crisis in the Western region.

The eurozone is a major export market, host to many overseas Filipino workers and is one of the sources of foreign direct investments and official development assistance.

“Europe is now going into a very difficult situation that one can describe as recessionary, but we have means to counter the adverse effects of what is happening in Europe,” Guinigundo told reporters.

He said efforts to increase trade with Asian markets as well as rising demand for Filipino workers in alternative labor markets would help offset the impact on the Philippines of the eurozone problems.

Guinigundo said expectations that consumption of Filipino households would increase further this year was favorable to businesses and was expected to help the domestic economy grow faster this year despite the crisis in Europe.

Benign inflation in the country encourages households to spend and businesses to invest in capital goods.

The Philippine economy grew 3.7 percent last year. The government aims to accelerate the growth of the economy to 5 to 6 percent this year.