EMPLOYERS are likely to factor in the P85 increase in Metro Manila’s minimum wage into their compensation budgets while seeking higher employee productivity and output to offset the added labor costs, online job portal JobStreet Philippines said.
JobStreet Philippines Managing Director Dannah Majarocon said the mandatory increase will directly affect companies’ financials, requiring employers to assess their overall salary and operating budgets for the year.
‘The very practical answer to that is the minimum wage increase will definitely have an impact to the financials of employers,’ Majarocon said during the JobStreet by SEEK Salary Pulse press conference in Taguig City on Friday.
She said companies would likely look at whether higher productivity and improved employee output can help their businesses absorb the additional cost.
‘One is an expectation on an increase in output,’ Majarocon said. ”Are my employees effective?’ ‘Are my employees productive?’ ‘How can I be more productive?’ How can my employees be more productive?”
‘So that the growth of the business is able to financially accommodate the increase in costs,’ she added.
For Majarocon, the wage increase would be only one component of companies’ compensation decisions, as employers also need to consider benefits, workplace flexibility and career progression in retaining workers.
‘Employers will deal with the increase in minimum wage. Employers will also have an expectation on productivity and improvement in outcomes,’ she said.
‘But they will also continue to have conversations around improvements on benefits, improvements on flexibility, improvements on career progression, to make this a very holistic situation,’ she added.
In JobStreet’s 2026 Salary Pulse report, there is a gap between how Filipino workers view the fairness of their pay and how satisfied they are with their salaries.
The Philippines ranked second in the Asia-Pacific region for perceived pay fairness, with 80 percent of Filipino workers saying they feel fairly or well paid.
Yet, only 59 percent said they were happy with their salaries, while 45 percent said their earnings remained below what they need to cover their cost of living.
Among workers who considered their pay ‘fair,’ only 44 percent were actually satisfied with their compensation, leaving 56 percent dissatisfied.
Millennials also reported greater financial pressure than younger and older groups. Among millennials who said they were happy with their pay, 54 percent still said their salaries fell below their standard-of-living needs, compared with 61 percent for Gen Z and 60 percent for Gen X.
By industry, technology workers recorded the highest salary happiness at 54 percent, followed by construction at 50 percent. Industrial workers reported the weakest position, with 58 percent saying their earnings fell below their cost-of-living requirements.
Majarocon said the findings reinforce the need for employers to look beyond salary alone when deciding how to retain workers.
‘The meat of the conversation that we have with employers now is about how do we keep employees. And that is a very holistic conversation,’ she said.