Quality of Pinoy construction workers declining?

The country is running out of doctors, nurses and pilots. Now, the number of Filipino construction workers is also approaching critical level as demand for them increases overseas and in local industries.

The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) reported yesterday that a shortage of experienced construction workers looms.

POEA officials, however, said the continued hiring of Filipino workers abroad is not solely to blame for the looming shortage, but also poor quality of construction workers being produced in the past years.

In a brief paper on migration of Filipino construction workers, POEA noted that construction workers of various skills continue to be in demand in the Middle East, Korea, Malaysia, Ireland and Canada.

In the last five years, POEA said, the country is getting annual job orders for more than 20,000 Filipino construction workers from foreign employers worldwide.

But based on POEA data, the country’s total deployment only posted 58,240 or 56 percent of the job order registered.

"The low deployment rate may be indicative of the shortage of the construction workers or quality supply, or competency gaps in the local labor market," POEA said.

According to POEA competency gap was more evident in the deployment of supervisor level with only 44 percent deployed of the total job orders during the five-year period.

"The figures on volume of applicants seeking employment is far too high against the number of those actually selected and deployed. This, to a large

extent, is due to applicants’ inability to satisfy the requirements of the position to be filled up," POEA pointed out.

Yet, POEA admitted that the steady and continuous outflow of constructions workers abroad may deplete the local construction industry of trained and experienced workers.

"Given the opportunity to work abroad for dollar earnings, a great majority of the local manpower will leave their jobs and this may discourage employers from training workers," POEA said.

To resolve the problem, POEA recommended the adoption of a comprehensive program to train workers and replenish those "lost" to overseas employment.

POEA also urged employers to take an active role in training and ensuring a stable supply of skills for local and overseas demand.