JobStreet: Spike in postings reflects job growth in CV

CEBU, Philippines - Even as the country’s unemployment rate jumped to a three-year high in April, the massive leap in the number of online job postings by employers in Central Visayas for 2013 mirrors the promising job growth in the region, an official of an online job portal said.

The recent statistics from JobStreet.com reveal Region 7 as the fastest-growing region in the Philippines in terms of postings as it registered a growth of 133 percent posted jobs within the first five months of the year. The national growth rate in the same data was pegged at 23 percent.

Companies operating in Cebu chipped in about 85 to 90 percent to the region’s growth.

Officials identified the call center/information technology-enabled services/business process outsourcing, retail merchandising and manufacturing and production as the top three hiring industries in Central Visayas.

JobStreet.com senior marketing manager Carolyn Marie Enriquez told reporters that as economic fundamentals remain sound, companies here are counting on more industry growth for the rest of the year.

A proof to this, she said, is their continued expansion which in turn increases the need to hire more people.

JobStreet.com is a Malaysia-based online recruitment company presently covering the employment markets in eight East Asian countries.

The group currently services over 80,000 corporate customers and about 10 million jobseekers in its database, 4.5 million of whom are Filipinos.

Last year, its website in the Philippines recorded a total of 150,000 jobs in Central Visayas from over 2,600 companies which published their job openings, although Enriquez clarified they could not determine how many of those job listings translated to actual hiring.

"Our figures show escalating trends in job posting but we don't interfere with how the management goes on with its hiring process," she said.

JobStreet.com reported 22,000 active company-employers nationwide in the previous year. Enriquez said these companies made 77,000 jobs available to the Filipino job market in 2012.

Job outlook

In a separate survey they conducted among 412 employers nationwide during the second quarter, more than half remain optimistic to see company expansions happening in several industries in the near future.

This coupled with the fact that more countries are recognizing the Philippines as a major player in the global economy is expected to further boost the country’s job growth, Enriquez said.

Almost half (45 percent) also say job growth in Q2 will be better than the previous period.

Accounting topped the list of in-demand specializations in the same quarter with 44.8 percent of companies with job openings for the given industry saying they need workers in such field, followed by sales (34.9 percent), IT (25.5 percent) and marketing (23.8 percent).

Highest paying jobs

The salary trend for 2013 sees higher compensation leaning on the technical side of the industry.

Enriquez said that based on the salaries posted by employers from January to March 2013, they have published a list of top 10 highest paying jobs to help jobseekers gauge whether their salary is competitive for their respective industries.

After determining the average salary of all specializations per position level, JobStreet.com disclosed that among fresh graduates, those working in legal services are the highest paid for a maximum of P22,348 as average starting wage, exclusive of other compensation.

Within the 1 to 4 years of experience bracket, oil and gas engineers are paid highest, earning about P40,878. Other specializations in the technical field, like IT, aircraft maintenance and chemical engineering, closely trailed the engineers in terms of wages received.

Technical support specializations are also earning highest in the managerial level while at the supervisory level, IT analysts are among the highest paid supervisors. Software analysts can get paid as much as P90,000 while database administrators, P58,000 and hardware IT, P56,000.

Finally, while it takes long years of experience and expertise before becoming a senior manager, all the hardwork does pay, said Enriquez.  A senior manager earns P142,920 while quality control senior managers get paid beyond average, earning as much as P253,000 monthly. (FREEMAN)