Low wages, job-skill mismatch, short-term contractualized work and unsafe workplaces are awaiting the estimated 1 million graduates in colleges and vocational schools this month, the Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (ALU-TUCP) said on Monday.
“We don’t want to give these young work force any false hope. We don’t to discourage them either, but these are the issues that confront our new graduates who will become the new breed of the millennial work force. It is our wish though that the wisdom they draw between their hope and the realities around them will guide them through,” said Alan Tanjusay, ALU spokesman.
According to Tanjusay, mismatch between skills and the actual jobs available in the market is a common problem and cause of underemployment.
In the October 2016 round of the government’s Labor Force Survey showed close to 8 million workers are in need of another job to augment daily income, he said.
Tanjusay added graduates are also confronted with low entry-level minimum wage.
“The purchasing value of the current P491 entry-level daily wage for workers in the National Capital Region area has eroded to P363 a day, excluding mandatory social- protection salary deductions and transportation and meals expenses,” he said.
Millennial workers are also facing precarious and prevalent job contractualization arrangement. Otherwise known as “555” (five months contract) and endo (end of contract), contractualization is a work arrangement where workers are terminated after five months and then rehired again for another five months.
“Seven out of 10 of the current 41 million work force are contractuals. Workers who were contractuals more than five years ago remain contractuals until today, getting the same entry-level pay without security of tenure and the benefits that they [are] supposed to enjoy. That’s how bad and massive contractualization is,” Tanjusay said.
Graduates are always faced with the possibility of occupational safety and health hazard, similar to the May 2015 Kentex fire incident in Valenzuela City that killed 74 workers and the HTI factory fire last month in General Trias, Cavite, that killed five of its workers.
“Young workers are not aware that they are walking into death traps and fire-hazard workplace when they apply for work. It’s because schools didn’t teach college students with the basic occupational safety and health information,” Tanjusay said.