Economic development ushers in dynamic job market for Bacolod
Eileen Camarillo-Go, Marketing manager of JobStreet.Com Philippines, presented the Bacolod City Job Trends and Salary Report, in a media briefing held last Friday at at Metro Inn.
A JobStreet.com report focusing on Bacolod and Western Visayas reveals that forty percent of jobs available to the region’s jobseekers and posted on the jobsite are from BPO and call center companies, with retail and manufacturing sectors accounting for eight and six percent, respectively.
Other industries accounting for available employment opportunities in the area are banking, real estate (both at 5%), marketing, wholesale trading, hospitality (at 3%), transportation and logistics, and food and beverage (at 2%).
While majority of jobs available in the PIP() industry is still connected with customer service-related specializations such as telemarketing, telesales, and technical and helpdesk support, a good number of other fields have also become employable by this leading sector.
Among other specializations being hired by the region’s BPO firms are information technology, nursing, human resources, accounting, and even electronics and communications engineering. This shows the high level of diversification of Bacolod’s job market, not to mention that jobseekers who do not specialize in customer service may now consider the BPO industry as a potential employer.
This diversity and dynamism in Bacolod’s employment landscape is also seen in the region’s salary scenario. While banking and financial services specialists top the list of the best paid junior executives (or employees with at least one to less than 5 years’ work experience), IT-related supervisors and engineering-related managers emerged as the highest paid in their particular position levels.
With investments in Bacolod resulting in growth of various industries like retail, real estate, and banking, demand for labor has also increased, resulting in salaries that have become more competitive with the rest of the country.
This trend is seen even among fresh graduates, which also have the BPO industry to look to for the most available employment opportunities available to them. As more call center and business process outsourcing facilities are being established in the region, particularly in the cities of Bacolod and Iloilo, salaries offered by competing companies are on the rise as a way to entice fresh graduates to join their fold. This would explain why specialists in customer service get the highest salaries among Bacolod’s fresh graduates with an average of PHPI 5,813 monthly. Other specialists receiving premium pay in the region include those in healthcare (e.g., entry level nurses, doctors, pharmacists, medical technicians), marketing, engineering, and sales.
“The exciting economic developments in Bacolod have made the job market in the area a very dynamic and interesting one. We at JobStreet.com are more than excited to be part of a boom in what has been recerffy touted as the Philippines’ most livable city,” JobStreet.com Philippines Country Manager Philip A. Gioca said.