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A TOTAL
of nine million jobs will be open for Filipinos both
here and abroad for the next four years if only the
country improves the quality of its manpower stock, the
Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) revealed
Wednesday.
“We
found out that there are sectors in need of workers who
possess the critical skills required by the respective
industries. Given an ensured supply of employed-ready
individuals, some 4 million job vacancies can be filled
in the country between 2006 and 2010,” said Labor
Secretary Arturo Brion at the 2007 National Human
Resource Conference held at the Manila Hotel.
Brion
said more than five million jobs will also be available
for Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) for the same
period.
He
blamed media reports and some public forums for making
people “believe that there are no more jobs in the
country.”
“The
reality, however, is that there are plenty of jobs
waiting to be filled up by qualified workers,” he said
adding that the failure of jobseekers to find
employment is due to a mismatch between available work
and manpower.
“Some
critical skills are either missing, or need to be
improved on among jobseekers,” he said.
The
labor department has identified nine hard-to-fill jobs
where all stakeholders can partner to improve employment
generation and productivity. These are cyber services,
mining, health services, hotels and restaurants,
agribusiness, medical tourism, creative industries,
aviation and overseas employment.
Brion
said while the country’s human capital is “our single
biggest competitive edge,” Filipinos lag behind other
nationalities in terms of competitiveness.
“It is
very disheartening to note that we are lagging behind
many nations in the global competitive race. But we are
happy to learn that we are still not far behind when it
comes to our human resources. We are not content [with]
merely generating jobs. We want the Philippines to be
known in the world as the center for workforce
excellence in selected fields,” he added.
To
achieve this, the labor chief said stakeholders must
focus on areas such as education and training, labor
relations, and human relations in the workplace. As of
January this year, the country’s labor force is
estimated at 36.4 million and the unemployment rate at
7.8 percent. More than half, or 50.6 percent, of these
workers are found in the services sector; agriculture
comes second with 34.7 percent followed by industry with
14.8 percent, according to labor statistics.
Labor
Undersecretary Romeo Lagman said the country needs to
improve access to higher education and upgrade the
quality of graduates who can compete in a fast-changing
global economy. --C.
Jimenez |
