Leading online employment firm JobStreet has revealed that a few key industries are still ramping up hiring despite the heavy toll on the job market brought by the coronavirus pandemic.
Information technology (IT)-enabled services and business-process outsourcing (BPO) jobs totaled 22,795 postings on the platform from March 15 to April 30, equivalent to 41 percent of the total hiring opportunities on the online employment site.
Meanwhile, government job postings accounted for a 15-percent share, followed by 9 percent in the education sector and 4 percent in banking and financial services. The pandemic has also placed increased demand for health-care professionals, which took the third spot with 9-percent share, with hospitals, pharmacies and insurance providers all currently hiring.
“Some companies have paused accepting applications, but many of them remain actively recruiting, so we’d like to encourage job seekers that there’s a way for them to signal hirers that they are up for urgent hiring,” said Philip Gioca, JobStreet Philippines country head.
“On the candidate side, they are mostly looking for part-time, freelance and home-based jobs,” he added, noting that among those looking to join the work force are 3 million fresh graduates.
The JobStreet executive noted that the strong shift to digital will soon reshape the way people work and the way companies operate. He said even companies that were resistant to the concept of a distributed work force have been forced to allow work-from-home setups because of the recent enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in Luzon.
During the two-month lockdown, Gioca said they found a 30- to 50-percent drop in local job postings, driven mainly by a slump on hiring from small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which accounts for 88.5 percent of businesses in the country and employ as much as 28.9 percent of total private sector employees.
Gioca pointed to the small capitalization of these firms for losing appetite for hiring at a time they were not earning because of city-wide closures.
As soon as more companies open and more areas transition to more relaxed measures under general community quarantine, however, Gioca said there will be parity in the job market.
“In May and June, we saw a very good traction of companies that started posting again,” he said. “It’s just a good indicator that business is about to start again.”
To help businesses and job seekers alike, JobStreet has launched an initiative titled #TogetherAhead (https://bit.ly/JobStreetTogetherAhead).
Through a Covid-19 microsite, the company displays information about available government financial assistance to guide employees and companies in their applications. The program also features the #WorkNow tool, which allows ready-to-work candidates to conveniently connect with potential employers.
The campaign supports another, titled #SanaOL, which highlights online jobs that can be fulfilled in a work-from-home setup.
Currently, the platform has a listing of over 14,000 job vacancies that require no experience from job seekers, plus over 1,600 work-from-home opportunities and over 180 job openings for undergraduates.
“The pandemic has greatly impacted businesses and the work force on a global scale,” said Ramesh Rajandran, chief marketing officer of SEEK Asia, JobStreet’s parent company. “More than ever, JobStreet strengthens its commitment to rebuild businesses, careers, and people’s lives.”
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