Firms are expected to hire fewer additional temporary workers ahead of the holiday rush amid less buoyant business confidence in the fourth quarter, according to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
“The employment outlook index for the next quarter remained positive although lower compared to the last quarter’s survey. This suggests that more firms will continue to hire new employees than those that indicated otherwise, although the number of new hires could decrease compared to the previous quarter’s survey,” the BSP said in a report, citing the results of its business expectations survey for the fourth quarter.
“Firms in the retail trade and services sectors were less optimistic, industry firms’ outlook was broadly steady, while those in the construction sector were more bullish in their hiring intentions,” the BSP said.
But despite tempered employment prospects, the BSP said the percentage of firms in the industrial sector that have expansion plans for the next term rose to 31.7 percent from 28.1 percent in the third quarter.
“Among subsectors, electricity, gas and water recorded the strongest expansion plans, followed by agriculture, fishery and forestry, and manufacturing,” the BSP added.
Confidence index
Overall, firms’ confidence index (CI) dropped to 39.8 percent in the fourth quarter, the lowest in more than two years, partly as a result of uncertainty over the government’s foreign policy as well as a weaker peso, the results of the business expectations survey showed.
While the CI remained in positive territory—which meant optimistic companies outnumbered pessimists—the figure for the October-to-December period was also the lowest fourth-quarter CI since 2011’s 38.7 percent.
Also, BSP data showed that while the fourth quarter yielded higher optimism than the preceding quarter amid strong consumer spending during the holiday season, the October-to-December CI declined from 45.4 percent in the third quarter—the last time that the fourth-quarter optimism was lower quarter-on-quarter was in 2004, which fell to 18.6 percent from the previous quarter’s 30.5 percent.
On a quarterly basis, the latest figure was the lowest since the 34.4 percent posted in the third quarter of 2014.