MANILA - Fresh graduates seeking to land their first job may receive as much as P20,000 per month if they look in the right industries, according to JobStreet.com Philippines.

In its recent Fresh Graduate Salary Report issued Tuesday, Jobstreet.com said jobs in the information technology (IT) sector are still the most lucrative in terms of salaries for new graduates.

The report showed that IT graduates received an average monthly wage of P22,567, based on jobs posted from October to December 2015.

IT-related jobs include computer technician and web administration staff.

Last year, fresh graduates of IT-related courses received a monthly average of P22,498.

Philip Gioca, JobStreet.com Philippines country manager, said the entry salary of fresh graduates across all industries in 2015 increased 9 percent from 2014.

The second-highest salaries for fresh graduates are jobs in actuarial/statistics, with average monthly salaries reaching P21,391.

Third in the rankings are jobs in law/legal services with P21,132; fourth are healthcare-related jobs with P20,048; while journalist/editor jobs placed fifth with P19,808.

Completing the top 10 of highest paying jobs are training and development (P19,723); quality control/assurance (P19,337); public relations/communication (P19,242); merchandising (P19,095); and customer service-related (P19,036).

Gioca noted that the call center/IT services/business process outsourcing (BPO) industry remains the biggest market for fresh grads.

The JobStreet.com report showed that there were 149,753 IT/BPO jobs posted online in 2015.

The second most in-demand industry for fresh grads is retail/merchandise, which offered 8,131 jobs in 2015.

Merchandising also posted the highest salary increase of 42.5 percent for fresh grads in 2015.

"The total number of fresh grads increased by 32 percent in 2015, which is a very good sign for our economy. The biggest jump coming from BPO, telcos and merchandise--these are the groups that are employing a lot more fresh grads in 2015," Gioca said in a press briefing on Tuesday.

Gioca added that fresh graduates should be ready to face a competitive market as there are more graduates compared to number of jobs available.

"The key to be considered a 'catch' in today's competitive job market is by sharpening sub-skills aside from your main specialization," Gioca said.

Meanwhile, Jobstreet.com said 8 out of 10 companies will hire fresh graduates to fill in vacant positions.

Six out of 10 companies consider the school where applicants have graduated from before hiring. From these companies, the top school they prefer to get fresh grads from is Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP).