Firms less upbeat on expansion, hiring
Credit to Author: MAYVELIN U. CARABALLO, TMT| Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2018 16:15:48 +0000
PHILIPPINE companies are less optimistic with regard to expansion and hiring for the first quarter of next year, data from a Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) survey showed.
Results of the recently released Business Expectation Survey (BES) put the confidence index (CI) of companies with expansion plans at 36 percent, marginally down from 36.1 percent in the previous quarter.
The CI is calculated as the net of percentage of companies that replied in the affirmative and the percentage of firms that answered otherwise with respect to their views on a given indicator.
“Stronger” expansion plans were recorded in manufacturing and mining and quarrying, the Bangko Sentral said, while the reverse was seen for the electricity, gas and water, and agriculture, fishery and forestry sectors.
The employment outlook, meanwhile, plunged to 21.8 percent from 26.3 percent.
The Bangko Sentral said the latest employment outlook “suggests that more firms will continue to hire new employees than those that said otherwise, although the number of new hires could decrease compared to the previous quarter’s survey.”
Employment prospects are expected to moderate across sectors, it added.
The expansion and employment outlooks are consistent with the less bullish overall business sentiment for the first quarter of 2019.
The outlook for the next three months dove to 29.4 percent from 42.6 percent in the fourth quarter, with respondents pointing to the usual slowdown in consumer demand after the holiday season.
“Moreover sentiment of firms was tempered by expectations of a peso depreciation, which increases the costs of imports, as well as higher inflation and interest rates,” BSP Department of Economic Statistics Director Redentor Paolo Alegre Jr. said last week.
The latest BES, which polled 1,463 companies nationwide, was conducted from October 1-November 23 this year. The survey results are considered indicative of the direction of overall business activity.
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