Social media managers, software engineers and graphic designers are the “fastest-growing jobs” in the Philippines from September 2020 to February 2021, according to a joint report released by Asian Development Bank (ADB) and LinkedIn in September 2022.
The report noted that in Indonesia and the Philippines, online content creation and social media jobs grew fastest from 2019/20 to 2020/21.
One of the study’s key findings noted that hiring in online content and social media is rising quickly in Indonesia and the Philippines, while Malaysia posts faster growth in digital business support roles such as in human resources and business development, and India in digital roles in software and system development.
With this,the study pointed out, “The fastest-growing job categories reflect national strengths across countries.”
The study was conducted using business and employment-oriented online service platform LinkedIn’s Economic Graph. Having a global membership of 850 million individuals and 58 million companies, the platform’s economic graph analyzes the said membership “through a prism of 38,000 standardized skills self-reported by LinkedIn members on their Linked In profiles.”
According to the report, the LinkedIn Economic Graph’s unique strengths include enabling new insights into emerging digital sectors and skills with “near real-time updates.”
Moreover, the report noted that many knowledge-intensive industries have good coverage across income levels and geographic locations, which allows for “global benchmarking.”
However, the report noted that methodology of this study also includes published data and insights from international organizations such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, Eurostat, the World Bank, and the World Economic Forum.
The LinkedIn Economic Graph also showed that India and the Philippines show strong demand for information technology business support roles, reflecting their “competitive advantage” in business process outsourcing (BPO).
In fact, the executive summary of Philippine information technology and business process management (IT-BPM) Sector Roadmap 2022 revealed that India and the Philippines share the same spot as global leaders in the IT-BPM sector and remain at the forefront of voice and non-voice BPM as well as IT services.
Meanwhile, the report disclosed that customer service representative, software engineer, and financial advisor were the top jobs in demand by number of hires from September 2020 to February 2021.
As for the digital skills, JavaScript, Structured Query Language (SQL), and HyperText Markup Language (HTML) topped the list in terms of demand within the same period.
However, the report showed that “by contrast”, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines share a similar mix of skill profiles that include digital literacy (e.g., Microsoft Office) and graphic design (e.g., Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator).
In terms of fields of study of employees holding jobs in demand, information technology (IT), Accounting, and Computer science topped the list in the Philippines.
As to the age of the workforce in e-learning, the report showed that India, Indonesia, and the Philippines have the largest shares of younger employees—Gen Z and millenials, which it said may also reflect “country-specific dynamics.”
For instance, the report unveiled that “the Philippine e-learning market posted double-digit annual growth from 2013 and 2018 thanks to government support; rising internet penetration; growing interest among schools; and high student interest in alternative learning techniques such as video, animation, gamification, and courseware.”