Intention to stay among young professionals from different sectors in the Philippines: A look at career engagement & career and job satisfaction as factors of career decision

Retention among young professionals is becoming a growing problem for many employers and businesses. In order to stay competitive, it is imperative to understand why employees stay or leave their organizations. This descriptive study looks at factors of career decision (career engagement, career satisfaction, and job satisfaction) and studies its connection with intention to stay among young professionals in selected industries. Using a self-administered questionnaire, data was gathered from 100 professionals from the banking/finance, marketing/sales, and human resource sectors who have had at least 6 months work experience, not having had graduated from college for more than 5 years. With regards to their basic employment characteristics, it was found that the time elapsed from graduation was almost double that of their work experience. However, these along with age and current sector did not have a significant relationship with career engagement, career satisfaction and job satisfaction. However, 75% of respondents were found to have reported a high career engagement regardless of gender as opposed to job and career satisfactions where total levels of satisfaction were found to be moderate with males significantly scoring higher than females in both aspects. Further, despite high levels of career engagement and moderate levels of job and career satisfaction, intentions to stay among respondents were consistently low. Majority (72%) intend to stay in their current place of employment for the next three years or less only 6% intends to stay longer than 5 years.