Philippine companies are expected to hire more in the fourth quarter on higher consumer demand during the Christmas season, results of a survey conducted by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas show.
The percentage of businesses with plans to hire additional employees rose to 27.3 percent in the fourth quarter from 24.7 percent in the third quarter.
The Bangko Sentral said in its latest business expectations survey that the employment outlook index for the next quarter improved because of the more positive sentiment of the services and wholesale and retail sectors which offset the less optimistic outlook of the industry and construction sectors.
“This suggests that more firms will continue to hire new employees than those that indicated otherwise,” it said.
Meanwhile, the percentage of businesses with expansion plans in the industry sector for the third quarter decreased slightly to 32.8 percent from 34.6 percent in the previous quarter.
Among sub-sectors, agriculture, fishery and forestry, and mining and quarrying recorded stronger expansion plans while those of manufacturing, and electricity, gas, and water were slightly down from a quarter ago.
The survey also showed that the outlook of the services sector remained favorable although less upbeat for the current quarter, on sluggish seasonal demand during the rainy season for hotels and restaurants and transportation services.
Respondents also cited concerns over the depreciation of peso and the peace and order situation in Mindanao, the Bangko Sentral said.
The outlook across sectors and sub-sectors for the fourth quarter were generally more buoyant due to expected high consumer demand during the Christmas season, inflow of OFW remittances, acceleration of infrastructure development projects and more investments.
The sentiment of the mining and quarrying, and agriculture, fishery and forestry sub-sectors declined slightly for the next quarter due to lower metal prices and closed fishing season from July to September.
The survey results showed that businesses anticipated inflation to increase but to remain within target, the peso to depreciate, and interest rates to go up for the current and next quarters.
Businesses anticipated the rate of increase in commodity prices to stay within the government’s 2 percent to 4 percent inflation target for 2017 and 2018.