THE UNIVERSITY of Santo Tomas slipped three notches to fifth place among 25 schools in the 2025 Philippines’ Best Employers, an independent survey conducted by the Philippine Daily Inquirer in partnership with Statista.
UST, which scored 8.47 in the latest survey from 8.78 previously, also placed 58th among 300 companies and institutions across various industries, lower than its 31st ranking last year.
“The survey sought to find out from the employees themselves if a company or institution lived up to the public persona it cultivated,” Inquirer said.
“How a company or institution treats its people is a reflection of its commitment to the good of the Filipino community, in general, and the country and the planet, as a whole. And the annual project recognizes that employees are in the best position to know if their employers abide by the duties and responsibilities of good corporate citizenship,” the nationwide broadsheet added.
Ateneo De Manila University topped the education sector, climbing 85 spots to 12th place overall with a score of 8.86. UST was also behind De La Salle University (14th from 54th); University of the Philippines (15th from 36th); and Mindanao State University (20th from 33rd), all of which saw a higher ranking in the latest poll.
Meanwhile, De La Salle – College Of Saint Benilde, which previously emerged as the leading academic institution and placed 30th overall, did not secure a rank this year.
Among the ranked companies and institutions, Ayala Land attained the first spot with a score of 9.18, followed by Google (9.09); Bureau of Fire Protection (9.08); and Unilever (9.07).
The employers were rated by their employees through online evaluations and recommendations based on various aspects, namely salary; work-life balance; potential for development; work environment (colleagues and superiors and equipment); and reputation of their employer (image and growth).
Employees were asked to rate their willingness to recommend directly their own employer to friends and family on a scale from zero to ten, with zero meaning, “I wouldn’t recommend my employer under any circumstances” and ten meaning, “I would definitely recommend my employer.”
An industry list of more than 2,000 pre-searched employers was also shown to the employee respondents to express their willingness to recommend other employers within their industry.
Established in 2007, Statista is a German-based data and research firm that offers access to extensive market data, studies and reports from over 22,500 sources across 170 industries. F
