Jobs and skills mismatch keeps unemployment high

CEBU, Philippines - Unemployment in the country remains high not because of lack of jobs, but rather because only a few are qualified for the thousands of jobs available nationwide.

“There are enough jobs in the market for everybody but it’s only that courses and skills of the labor force are mismatched. So we encourage skills training because nowadays, skilled individuals are hugely in demand,” said JobsDB Philippines, Inc. Sales manager Philip C. Pogiongko during the 4th Trabaho sa Turismo Expo.

Pogiongko said that although having a good education matters, having a diploma is not a guarantee to have a good future so there is still a need to really continuously improve and upgrade skills.

He also said that nowadays, jobs that are now in demand include accounting, hotel services, animators, seafarers and other IT-related skills.

Right now, nurses and other medical-related courses is already saturated in the job market and those with these competencies are being recruited to work for airline companies and other sectors that need this kind of support in their workforce.

Pogiongko said that in line with the massive lay offs done by major companies recently, JobsDB has done out placements wherein they go to companies who have retrenched workers and got these workers and deploy them to other companies who need their competencies.

“We get their retrenched people and place them to other companies and this has been our on going program and so far we have placed almost a thousand workers already. JobsDB serves as a middle man so that employees and employers will meet and their gap will be bridged,” he said.

Pogiongko added that these workers who have been out placed are coming from manufacturing, export and food industry.

He discussed that right now, sectors that include the business process outsourcing continue to demand more people as well as tourism, construction and information technology.

He said that BPOs employ around three million people and just recently, the industry published around 300, 000 new back end and front end jobs for both voice and non-voice processes.

For the construction industry, engineers and other skilled manpower remains in demand especially abroad in the Middle East while aircraft technicians are also demanded by the airline industry.

Whereas for IT, SAP, IT language, animators and other related skills are in demand while vocational courses such as plumbing and other skills in the service sector is also in demand in countries like Australia and Canada.

Pogiongko revealed that right now, they are working closely with a new US company who is into the gaming businesses which is looking for 3, 000 web developers for Cebu alone.

“Our Cebu operation is doing quite well. The job opportunities here are enormous with the same rate as in Manila that is why we also encourage those working there to go back to their province because opportunities here will be better,” he said.

In the recently held 4th Trabaho sa Turismo expo, JobsDB was able to offer 8,598 jobs with 1, 564 job positions from tourism-focused companies. – THE FREEMAN