MANILA, Philippines – Here’s good news for fresh graduates and young professionals: almost all local job vacancies in the country this year are for the youth.
About 2.7 million job openings are available for 2012, according to Internet recruitment site JobStreet.com.
Of the number, 64% are local while 36% are in neighboring Asian countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.
Citing an industry study, JobStreet marketing director Yoda Buyco said 80% of local job posts are for those who have zero to four years of work experience.
She said over 480,000 students are expected to finish college this year, with most of them taking up the following disciplines: medical and allied; business administration; information technology (IT); engineering; and education and science.
“Majority of jobseekers, which amount to 10.2 million, are the youth, the fresh graduates and those with one to four years of experience,” Buyco said in a media roundtable held on Thursday.
Buyco said the hottest local industry this year, or the industry that has the highest number of job openings, is IT-enabled services, particularly business process outsourcing (BPO).
Other top local industries include:
Buyco said JobStreet.com currently offers more than 366,000 local and overseas jobs from about 22,000 companies.
Aside from BPO firms, it also has a mix of big clients such as Nestle, HSBC and Globe Telecom, and small and medium enterprises.
“Employers post the job openings. Everything is user-generated,” Buyco said.
Overseas job posts for youth, too
Fresh graduates and young professionals also have a better chance at getting a job abroad this year, with 76% of overseas job vacancies available to them at JobStreet.com, Buyco said.
She said top overseas specializations for 2012 include:
Buyco assured that JobStreet.com only provides job openings from trusted companies, and warned against “direct offers” from firms and agents which are not licensed by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA).
“There’s no such thing as a ‘direct offer.’ Dumadaan pa rin lahat sa licensed POEA agency,” she said.
Buyco then gave this tip to jobseekers who plan to post their resumes online: “Use specific keywords. Be as specific as possible [in your resume] so employers can find you.”
JobStreet.com goes mobile
As it aims to strengthen its hold on young jobseekers, JobStreet.com recently launched a smartphone application where users can search for employment while on the go.
Hubert Punongbayan, JobStreet senior marketing officer, noted that about 5 million Filipinos access the Internet via their mobile phone, a gadget seen by many as a “very personal” device.
“Job-hunting is a very private pursuit,” Punongbayan said, adding, “Most apps are for games, and we want to take advantage of this opportunity [to create a job-hunting app].”
The JobStreet.com app is currently available on the iTunes store and the Android Market, as well as on BlackBerry devices for free.
Punongbayan said they plan to make a version for Windows-run smartphones in the near future. –Karen Flores, ABS-CBNnews.com
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