DOLE goes online to give career guide for HS graduates

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) is now offering a free online career guide for high school graduates and other young jobseekers nationwide.

Labor Undersecretary Romeo Lagman said the new program is part of DOLE’s efforts to curb the worsening manpower shortage and rising unemployment in the country.

“DOLE Greater Modular Access Jobs Center kiosks are now operating in various malls and local government units nationwide where students and jobseekers can seek information on highly in demand jobs,” Lagman disclosed.

With the career guidance information now available for free on the Internet, Lagman said, DOLE hopes to address the prevailing mismatch between available jobs and skills.

Lagman said guidance counselors in various schools all over the country could also use the information from the Internet to assist students in choosing their career path.

He pointed out that Career Guide provides brief information on more than 40 occupations that are now highly in demand by local and overseas establishments.

“There is relevant information on the nature of job, education, competency requirements, earnings, employment and job outlook,” Lagman added.

Lagman said students and jobseekers can readily access Career Guide through the DOLE website at www.phil-job.net or www.ble.dole.gov.ph.

Latest data from the DOLE’s Bureau of Local Employment (BLE) showed a total of 63,950 jobs which are yet to be filled, while there are 32,562 jobseekers nationwide. 

The same data gathered by BLE revealed that customer service assistants and call center agents are now the most in demand skilled workers among local employers.

A total of 6,012 jobs are available for customer assistants and 4,436 for call center agents. Occupational therapist is in the third slot with close to 300 unfilled positions.

Despite the country’s high unemployment rate, DOLE has recorded an increasing number of job vacancies or unfilled positions in the past years.

Labor officials noted that thousands of jobs are open for Filipino workers but they cannot be filled up due to unavailability of qualified workers.

Earlier, DOLE reported that 30.3 percent of firms operating in the National Capital Region (NCR) are having difficulty filling up vacancies due to lack of qualified workers.