Skills mismatch hounds labor market – DOLE

By Richmond Mercurio (The Philippine Star), March 11, 2016

MANILA, Philippines – Filipino applicants’ lack of skills – not lack of jobs – continues to hound the country’s labor market as only 10 out of 1,000 applicants are getting hired on the average.

“The vacancies are really out there waiting for the qualified job applicants. Our biggest problem is the jobs and skills mismatch. It is only now that we’re aligning our education and training systems with the industry requirements using international benchmarked standards,” Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said.

Local human resources conglomerate Servicio Filipino Inc. (SFI) said data from the group’s operations in the past five years showed only one percent of 1,000 applicants are actually being hired by companies.

“Out of 1,000 resumes we get, less than 100 will qualify for the positions we’re looking for and of that figure, only 36 percent of them pass our basic employability competency test. Among those who pass, between 20 to 22 people will go to the interview process and be endorsed to our clients. Out of that figure, a mere eight to 10 people will be successfully hired,” SFI president and chief executive officer Luis Alberto Anastacio said.

“We’ve been in the business of recruitment for 55 years and we’ve seen the challenges. Finding the right people who qualify with the right skills and credentials is very difficult. If we have up-to-date and accurate information that we can share to the industry, share to the education sector and also share to the job seekers, then we can prepare,” Anastacio added.

In the past two decades, Baldoz said the country’s unemployment rate has fluctuated between seven to 14 percent.

For this year, she said about 600,000 to 700,000 people would again be entering the country’s labor force.

“All of us know that March, April, May and June are the months when graduates traditionally enter the country’s labor force. Unfortunately, not everyone of these aspirants is able to easily penetrate the labor market and many eventfully became part of the unemployed,” Baldoz said.

To prepare for the upcoming job hunting season, DOLE launched yesterday a partnership with SFI to enhance PhilJobNet, the government’s job search and labor market information portal that seeks to fast track the job hunting process.

“We aim to further shorten the job search of job seekers through the enhanced PhilJobNet. We have addressed the existing technical issues and limitation of the PhilJobNet system and we have partnered with SFI to develop a new platform of the PhilJobNet website,” Baldoz said.

DOLE said PhilJobNet has generated a total of 155,280 job vacancies from various industries in the country from January to March this year.