AFTER a record-high unemployment rate at the height of the pandemic-induced lockdowns, Filipinos should expect more job opportunities at the opening of next year, as more firms indicated willingness to start increasing their employment size in the first quarter of 2021.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), in its quarterly survey of business expectations and confidence, reported that more firms indicated improved employment and outlook plans for January to March this year.
In particular, the employment outlook index returned to the positive territory for the first quarter of 2021 at 5.3 percent. This is a turnaround from the -5.5 percent in the previous round of the survey.
For the next 12 months, the employment outlook index hit 7.8 percent from the -2.1 percent, indicating an upward trend in the confidence of businesses to hire people in the next couple of months.
The confidence index is computed as the percentage of optimistic firms minus the percentage of pessimistic firms on the employment outlook.
Likewise, the percentage of businesses with expansion plans in the industry sector rose to 16.9 percent for the first quarter of 2021 from 11 percent in the previous survey round.
For the next 12 months, the index of expansion confidence hit 28 percent from 20.4 percent in the previous survey.
The BSP said the percentage of firms that expressed expansion plans for the next quarter and the next 12 months increased across all industry subsectors, except for the agriculture, fishery and forestry sub-sector, which declined.
Asked about what risks could hamper their improved confidence for the coming months, businesses identified insufficient demand resulting in low sales volume and stiff competition as indicated by 45.6 percent and 36.7 percent of the total number of respondents, respectively.
The BSP also said the majority of the respondents specified—as their additional business constrain—the continued adverse effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed the country’s unemployment rate hit 8.7 percent in October.