DOLE-Jobstreet.com Study Reveals Filipinos' Preference for Hometown Jobs

MANILA, March 2016 "“ Despite the wealth of opportunities concentrated in the National Capital Region, more individuals prefer to work in their location of origin. These results were revealed in an online survey conducted by the Department of Labor and Employment and JobStreet.com Philippines.

Nationally, three out of four of locally employed respondents, who have preference to still work in the country, claim that given the chance, they would rather stay in their locality to work than relocate elsewhere. All 16 regions of the Philippines registered as pro-local jobs, as even the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, the area with the highest percentage of individuals amenable to working outside their hometowns, has at least one in three residents opting to stay and work locally.

On the other hand, those in Central Visayas are the most satisfied with opportunities in their area, with 90% saying they would prefer to stay and work within the region than elsewhere. Other regions with high percentages of their workforce preferring local opportunities are the Davao Region (85%), Northern Mindanao (79%), Western Visayas (74%), and CARAGA (75%).

As expected, about 93% of the employed respondents currently located in Metro Manila prefer to stay in the region and only 5% would consider jobs in other parts of the country.

As to why more of the respondents prefer to stay in familiar territory even with the possibility of more promising employment prospects in other places, factors such as their preference to stay with their family and friends, work environment and culture fit, and work-life balance come into play.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, those currently working locally who consider venturing outside their hometowns and get overseas employment cite low salaries offered by local companies, poor benefits and incentives, and their families' financial needs as reasons for their decision to leave their hometowns.

An Abundance of Local Employment Options

While working locally has proven to be a popular objective for the Filipino workforce, there is the prevalent perception that the options for local jobs are limited, or worse, non-existent. As much as jobseekers would like to stay in their hometowns and be gainfully employed there, there are no jobs available for everyone, which then prompts the majority to seek work in regional urban centers, Metro Manila, or overseas.

DOLE in cooperation with local governments has been working incessantly to dispel this notion. With the establishment of the Public Employment Service Offices (PESOs) across the country, jobseekers would be informed of the availability and nature of jobs they have in their locality. There are currently almost 2,000 established and 400 institutionalized PESOs in most localities across the Philippines, providing employment facilitation services for those looking for jobs within their area.

As for those preferring to search for jobs online, PhilJobNet, the government's official job portal, offers over 80,000 vacancies monthly while JobStreet.com has more than 48,000 employment opportunities available.

With information from these channels, DOLE is also able to point out which the key employment generators and  in-demand jobs in every region. This should be very useful information for jobseekers who want to work in particular industries.

The DOLE-JobStreet.com Philippines Work Location Preference Online Survey was conducted in June 2015. A total of 31,000 respondents participated, with a good mix of workers currently employed locally (58%) and overseas (25%) and registered on JobStreet.com.

About JobStreet.com

JobStreet.com is a leading online job board presently covering the employment markets in Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam. JobStreet.com currently services over 230,000 corporate hirers and over 15 million jobseekers in its database.

About SEEK Asia

JobStreet.com and jobsDB are part of SEEK Asia, which is the leading online employment market place in Asia. SEEK Asia covers 7 countries namely Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

SEEK Asia is the extension of the Australian Securities Exchange listed company called SEEK. The company's purpose is to help improve people's lives through a better career. SEEK Asia's database consist of over 500,000 corporate hirers and over 24 million candidates.

For more information about this article, or to schedule an interview with JobStreet.com Philippines, please call Mark Nichol Turija, Content Marketing Specialist, at 286-6222.