ILO chief tells Filipino graduates to get BPO jobs

While waiting for the chance to land a job abroad, nursing, engineering, and accountancy graduates in the Philippines should help expand the skills gap in the country, the International Labor Organization (ILO) director to the Philippines said over the weekend. The graduates should fill the manpower shortage in business process outsourcing (BPO), particularly in medical transcription and in call centers, ILO chief Lawrence Jeff Johnson.

“There’s lack of takers in the available jobs in the labor market even if there are graduates who could fill in these [jobs]. These graduates without jobs must take advantage of the labor market gaps,” he pointed out in his presentation, “From poverty to decent work: Bridging the gap through the Millennium Development Goals and the Global Jobs Pact.” Foreign investments in BPO are on the rise, Johnson said, noting that since 2007, demands for medical transcriptionists, call center agents, software programmers, and restaurant workers have exceeded supply. Johnson said the Philippines has a demand for 60,012 BPO engineers, accountants, and skilled workers, 178,771 hotel and restaurant workers, and 747,947 call center agents.

At present, there are 33,886 nursing graduates competing for only 24,481 jobs available in the country, he noted. “These nursing graduates can temporarily fill in the huge gap for medical transcriptionists given their medical background,” Johnson said. There are 133,988 slots available for medical transcriptionists but only 2,794 graduates are qualified for the job, he added. He pointed out that while the government and private sector work closely to address the looming mismatch of labor supply and demand those already in the field could fill in the growing gaps in the industries. As an agriculture-based country, the Philippines also faces an increasing demand for agribusiness workers with 43,393 jobs available, but only 12,612 graduates are qualified for those positions, Johnson added. — JE/VS, GMANews.TV