Online hiring demand up 30% in first quarter

CEBU, Philippines - Online job placement company, Jobstreet Philippines, has felt through the increase of companies availing of its hiring services that the country’s economy is going stable.

Christian Villaruel, senior marketing officer of Jobstreet Philippines Cebu branch, said that its client-companies that hire applicants from their site increased by 20 to 30 percent in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period last year.

He told The Freeman in an interview that 40 percent of these companies come from the information technology (IT) sector such as call centers, outsourcing, web designing and programming while the rest come from the manufacturing sector and overseas.

Jobstreet, a company founded by a Malaysian, links employers and employees through the Internet. After succeeding in Manila, the company established in 2007 an office in Cebu to cater to its growing clients in the province. Jobstreet now has more than 15, 000 client-companies nationwide.

Aside from growing its clientele and awaiting online applications, Villaruel said Jobstreet is also linking with schools and universities so as to increase its database of future employees or jobseekers.

Based on Jobstreet’s Second Quarter of 2010 Job Outlook Index study, 25 percent of its respondent-companies in the Philippines said they will be expanding their hire rate in the next 12 months.

When it comes to the question on whether their national economies had hit the bottom, only 25 percent of the Filipinos answered yes while some 36 percent and 51 percent of the respondents in Malaysia and Singapore, respectively, also answered yes.