Consider in-demand jobs, youth told

Labor and Employment Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz has encouraged young people , including students and fresh graduates, to take a closer look at in-demand occupations, and develop the corresponding skills to avail of these job opportunities found in the country’s major and emerging industries.

Baldoz said students should take the appropriate, matching courses, or link up with the DOLE’s Technical Education and Skills Development Authority and its training centers nationwide for counseling, guidance, and training.

The labor chief said this will address the prevailing job-skills mismatch and also provide young people broad opportunities and productive alternatives in the local economy in lieu of brain drain or disadvantageous migration of Filipino workers abroad.

Baldoz said the DOLE’s Project Jobs Fit has already identified the growing industries or so-called ”Key Employment Generators” in the Philippines in the next 10 years.

She said these industries are the agribusiness, cyberservices, health and wellness, hotel, restaurant and tourism, mining, construction, banking and finance, manufacturing, ownership dwellings and real estate, transport and logistics, wholesale and retail trade.

Project Jobs Fit also has pointed out four emerging industries expected to reinforce employment opportunities in the next 10 years, namely creative industries, diversified/strategic farming and fishing, power and utilities, and renewable energy.

As identified by Project Jobs Fit, there are some 108 in-demand occupations that are, however, described as “hard-to-fill.”

Baldoz said these “hard-to-fill” jobs will be much easier to avail of, with productive benefits, should young people take the steps to develop appropriate skills or decide to become “multi-skilled” people with a wide a range of versatility and productive capacities.

The 108 occupations needed by industries as pinpointed by Project Jobs Fit include the following: Agribusiness – Agricultural Economist, Aqua-culturist, Coconut Farmer, Entomologist (Plant), Farmer (Fruit, Vegetable and Root Crops), Fisherman, Horticulturist, Plant Mechanic, Rice Tresher Operator-Mechanic, Veterinarian, Pathologist;

Cyberservices – Call Center Agent; Health, Wellness and Medical Tourism – Nurse, Herbologist, Optician, Optometrist; Hotel and Restaurant – Front Office Agent/ Attendant, Baker, Food Server and Handler, Food and Beverage Service, Attendant, Waiter, Bartender, Room Attendant, Other Housekeeping Services, Reservations Officer and other Frontline Occupations, Tour Guides; Mining occupations;

Construction – Fabricator, Pipe Fitter, Welder, Banking And Finance, Operations Manager, Teller; Manufacturing – Electrical Technicians, Finance and Accounting Managers, Food Technologist, Machine Operators, Sewer; Ownership Dwellings, Real/ Retirement Estate – Building Manager, Construction Manager, Construction Worker, Foreman, Mason, Welder, Real Estate Agents/ Brokers, Marketer;

Transport and Logistics – Checker, Maintenance Mechanics, Stewardess; Wholesale and Retail – Merchandiser/Buyer, Salesman/Saleslady, Promodizer, among others.