More employers optimistic with PH job market this year

Optimism for the Philippines’ job market has increased, with employer sentiment for the first six months of the year expected to improve as the majority point to performance recovering to prepandemic levels this year, according to a report from online job platform Jobstreet.

A survey of 438 local firms in its “2022-2023 Outlook-Hiring, Compensation and Benefits Report” resulted in 66 percent saying they were optimistic about the local job market for the first half of 2023.

This is higher than the 41 percent recorded from July to December of last year.

“In general, things are looking up for the employment market in the Philippines. The majority of employers in the Philippines are optimistic about hiring in [the first half of] 2022,” the Jobstreet report said, but did not provide an explanation for the improvement in the outlook.

Despite this, the report cited that 49 percent of these companies answered that hiring plans were back to prepandemic levels, with another 30 percent saying it would normalize by June of this year.

Another 10 percent said they expect the recovery to happen by July and in the succeeding months.

Competition for talent

“As we return to prepandemic conditions, the competition for talent will also increase given current global conditions. Companies need to be able to strategize on their talent attraction and retention to remain at the top of employees’ minds,” JobStreet Philippines country manager Philip Gioca said in a statement.

“Additionally, for the Philippines, we foresee that human resource (HR) digitalization which allows HR process transformation, will make companies stay competitive. Companies should consider what the employees need and want, and be able to adapt to shifting expectations,” he said further, adding this will be critical to attracting talent given the competitive labor market.

The Jobstreet report said that most companies, or 89 percent, hired a new employee from July to December of 2022.

This includes 79 percent which hired at least one permanent full-time staffer, as well as 20 percent which hired at least one contractual or temporary staffer.

As for layoffs, the report cited that about one in four companies had let go of at least one employee in the past six months.

The same Jobstreet report said that job functions such as information technology (IT), accounting, administration and human resources, sales or business development, and engineering are the most highly sought full-time roles by companies.

In particular, 27 percent of these firms hired IT staff, 24 percent hired accounting professionals, 23 percent hired administration and HR personnel, 20 percent hired sales and business development employees, and 14 percent hired engineers. INQ