Business expansion fuel jobs expectations, surveys say

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas on the jobs and expansions front, according to private sector employers who responded to two separate surveys conducted earlier this quarter.

 

The Business Expectations Survey of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and the Jobstreet survey of registered firms and recruitment agencies both point to expansion of respondents' operations in the quarter, particularly in the services sector.

 

Delving further into the fourth quarter that includes Christmas, the BSP survey said, “firms in the construction sector were the most optimistic in their employment outlook in Q4 2013.”

 

“The employment outlook of firms in the services and wholesale and retail trade sectors was likewise upbeat, while that of industry remained steady,” the BSP said.

 

The Bangko Sentral said further that, “in line with the more favorable business sentiment of the industry sector for the next quarter, the percentage of businesses with expansion plans increased to 32.1 percent (from 28.7 percent).

 

“Meanwhile, the average capacity utilization for the current quarter slightly improved to 74.9 percent from 74 percent registered a quarter ago, the BSP added.

 

The optimistic sentiment was reflected in Jobstreet's survey.

 

For the third quarter, 62.7 percent of responding companies say that they will expand and hire more people to fill new job postings—a 6.7-point increase from 56 percent expanding companies last quarter. Most of the companies with expansion activities come from trade and retail, followed by manufacturing and information technology, Jobstreet marketing manager Yoda Buyco said. 

 

"Expansions are expected in several industries...especially those in the field of sales, finance, and customer service," the JobStreet executive said.

 

For this year, Buyco said they target to have 60 percent of the expected 1.3 million job openings. Last year, nearly 500,000 jobs were posted on JobStreet.com's website, higher than the 400,000 job posting in 2011. 

 

The JobStreet.com official also said they expect more Filipinos will send in applications using their mobile app stemming from the job search portal's   partnership with Globe Telecom Inc. to provide subscribers unlimited access through a mobile surfing bundle.

 

"We receive over 300,000 people who apply for jobs in our website. We expect an even bigger portion of our applicants coming from mobile," Buyco said.

 

For this year, Buyco said the Jobstreet target is to have 60 percent of the 1.3 million job openings they expect for the whole year. Last year, nearly 500,000 jobs were posted on JobStreet.com's website, higher than the 400,000 job postings in 2011.

 

Jobstreet also expects more job postings to come from small and medium scale businesses, which the employment portal are beginning to realize the growing significance of online recruiting.

 

"Our current expansion program is in the SME (small and medium enterprise) sector, particularly on the production and distribution business. There is a huge increase from SMEs as they adopt the online process of recruiting," Buyco said.

 

Earlier this year, Labor and Employment Secretary Rosalinda Dimapilis-Baldoz urged job seekers to consider jobs applying to job vacancies in the Phil-JobNet--the government's online job search and job matching facility--that have fewer takers, saying this will help solve the job-mismatch problem. 

 

"There are even vacant positions with no applicants at all based on the Top 20 Vacancies vs. Applicants report of the Labor Market Updates. Job seekers must consider these vacancies and apply or attend short training courses to qualify for these available jobs," Baldoz said.

 

JobStreet.com has about 4.5 million registered members and 22,000 companies and agencies in various segments of industries, including the top 1,000 corporations and multinationals. 

 

The BSP said in a statement that the Q3 2013 BES was done during the period 1 July–13 August 2013 and 1,552 firms surveyed nationwide.

 

“Respondents were drawn from the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Top 7,000 Corporations in 2010, consisting of: 606 companies in NCR and 946 firms in AONCR, covering all 17 regions nationwide. The survey response rate for this quarter was higher at 83.4 percent,” the BSP said.

 

The Q3 2013 BES was conducted during the period 1 July–13 August 2013. There were 1,552 firms surveyed nationwide. Respondents were drawn from the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Top 7,000 Corporations in 2010, consisting of: 606 companies in NCR and 946 firms in AONCR, covering all 17 regions nationwide. The survey response rate for this quarter was higher at 83.4 percent.  — ELR, GMA News