Go for employable courses, recruitment experts urge students

MANILA, Philippines – In choosing a career path, do not go for popular, but for “employable” courses.

This was the advice of Federated Association of Manpower Exporters (FAME) executive director Lito Soriano to incoming college freshmen who plan to enrol in well-liked courses that, ironically, now have limited job opportunities.

“I strongly recommend that they study their options. There are some popular courses now but in the end, when they graduate, it would be difficult for them to find a job,” he told The STAR.

Soriano said the “mismatch” between popular courses and the actual job demands both here and abroad is already alarming. He cited nursing, hotel and restaurant management (HRM) and information and communication technology (ICT) as among the courses that high school graduates are aiming to take in college with the wrong notion of landing a good job in the future.

“In truth, there are so many graduates of these courses who are either unemployed or were forced to get a job that is totally not related like those in call centers,” noted Soriano, who is also president of LBS E-Recruitment Solutions Corp.

In his study entitled “The OFW Economic Engine, Philippine Reality & Required Reform Arising from the Global Financial Crisis”, he claimed that for school year 2007-2008, nursing topped other courses in terms of enrolment. Nursing course posted an enrolment of 420,015, followed by HRM (122,658); IT (114, 658); elementary education (94,974); computer science (94,468); criminology (87,370) and accountancy (82,368).

Nursing became popular among Filipino students almost a decade ago because of huge demands in countries like the United States, Japan, Singapore, Canada, Australia and other European countries. In the past two years, however, experts have observed that most hospitals there have already been saturated.

Soriano had estimated that in nursing alone, annual enrolment is around 400,000, but local hospitals can absorb not more than 5,000 nurses every year. And even abroad, “opportunities have become limited to experienced and trained nurses with at least two years work experience in the field.”

Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) records show that the number of nurses deployed abroad went down 35 percent or from 13,822 in 2001 to 9,004 in 2007.

The situation is the same for HRM and IT – the prospect for employment here and abroad is not so bright. “These courses have also become popular among the locals in other countries. So they don’t need to hire foreigners to do the job for them ….. I just hope that our students will analyze their options and go for employable courses,” Soriano said.

Recruitment consultant Emmanuel Geslani said it’s about time that the government, colleges and universities address such a mismatch for the sake of the country’s younger generation.

Geslani claimed that many educational institutions still open such unemployable courses because these are the ones being targeted by students. “They do not care about oversupply as long as many students enroll in these courses. We really have to do something about this.” He added that while some “white-collar jobs” are still in on the local front, the way to go is to work abroad if one is after a more prosperous future.

Geslani said that at present, some countries in the Middle East offer better employment opportunities for overseas Filipino workers. Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Libya have been named as countries that were able to resist the global economic crunch so far.

Qatar managed to parry the financial crisis due to the construction boom there, while rich Saudi Arabians are investing their money at home.

Libya, on the other hand, is being sustained by its oil supply. The trade embargo imposed against it in the past had also prevented Libyans from putting up businesses in other countries, thus, keeping their money at home.

Geslani had recommended that students take courses in engineering, physical and occupational therapy, laboratory technician and other vocational courses, instead of going to “glamorous” courses.

“While it is early, second and third year college students can still shift to more employable courses…. Parents spend a lot of money sending them to school so it is better if they can land a good job when they graduate,” he added.–Sheila Crisostomo, Philippine Star