DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 13 April) – A study conducted by an online employment market place in the Philippines said salary rates of workers in the Mindanao area are competitive compared to the rates offered by companies operating in other parts of the country.
Among fresh graduates, particularly, Mindanao employees are earning P16,664 per month on the average, next only to those in Provincial Luzon, who are getting P20,084, according to JobStreet.com country manager Philip A. Gioca.
During Wednesday’s presentation of Mindanao Jobs and Salary Report at the Metropolis Suites Davao, Gioca said that the national average salary for fresh graduates is P16,582. Visayas fresh graduates get P16,404, while those in the National Capital Region get the lowest, at P15,538.
He noted that the entry of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) companies, as well as companies which need employees who possess marketing and engineering skills, is what pushed the improvement in the salary grades of the employees.
“Meanwhile, those specializing in IT, marketing, and engineering get top pay among Mindanao’s junior executives. Both IT and marketing specialists in the junior executive level earned more this year compared to their average salaries last year,” the study noted.
The study also pointed out engineers, finance, and sales managers are highest earning careers in the island.
“It should be noted that sales managers in Mindanao get paid higher on the average compared to their counterparts in Visayas and Provincial Luzon by 2 percent and 10 percent, respectively,” it added.
The study also stated that workers in the supervisory level “earn P26,802 on the average, with those in IT, customer service, and engineering topping the list of highest salary earners in the area. The average salaries of the top three supervisory specializations increased this year compared to their averages last year.”
Gioca also noted that fresh graduates who landed jobs in the IT sector earn P22,529 a month, P19,476 in hospitality-related business, and P19,087 in customer service-related firms.
Among the highest paid junior executives, he noted IT-related jobs pay workers P24,220 a month, marketing/business development jobs pay P20,186, and engineering-related jobs pay P18,246.
For the highest paid supervisors, Gioca said IT-related employment pays P35,560, customer service-related jobs pay P33,802, and engineering-related pays P28,248. Meanwhile, managers in engineering-related firms get paid P45,000, P40,136 in finance-related jobs companies, and P38,927 in sales-related jobs.
Gioca, however, said that workers in supervisory and managerial levels are a bit lower as compared to the rates ranging from P40,000 to P50,000 offered in Metro Manila.
He said that JobStreet.com, which started in the Philippines in 1999, has registered 6.5 million job seekers, of whom 500,000 are in Mindanao.
A total of 22,000 companies advertise job vacancies in the online employment market place, of which 1,500 are in Mindanao, he said, adding that 40 percent of openings are call center jobs.
He said they are hoping to capture 80 percent of the qualified candidates in Mindanao in the next 12 months, which the executive said is attainable since a growing number of young applicants are using smartphones.
“We want to capture 80 percent of the employers in Mindanao to advertise jobs (on JobStreet.com) because it offers a good alternative to print media,” he said, adding that at least 30 percent of the employers in Mindanao are present on JobStreet.com.
Currently, there are about 58,000 job openings registered on JobStreet.com as of Wednesday, he said.
