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Philippines tackles high unemployment rate amid economic crisis

(philstar.com) Updated March 02, 2009 02:04 AM

MANILA (Xinhua) -- Unemployment rate in the Philippines is expected to remain high in the next few months as the
global economic crisis crimps business activities, analysts said.
The Philippines has one of the highest unemployment level in Southeast Asia, standing at 6.8 percent as of October
2008, according to the country's National Statistics Office.
The global economic turmoil has dampened demand in Japan, the United States and Western Europe -- large markets
for Philippine export goods, services and migrant workers. As these markets contracted, so did the demand for
Philippine labor.
"Workers will always be the victims in a recession," said Father Edwin Corros, executive secretary of the Catholic
Bishops Conference of the Philippines' Episcopal Commission on Migrants and Itinerants.
"When there's no demand for your products, how can you continue to hire people to make your products?" said Rene
Cristobal, vice president of the Employers Confederation of the Philippines, Inc. (ECOP). Cristobal said several of
ECOP's member-companies have to lay off workers as they either close shops or reduce their output.
Analysts said the most vulnerable workers are those in the export-oriented industries such as electronics and textile
manufacturing. "The recession in our trading partners has hit our exports sector hard," said Philippine Socio-Economic
Planning Secretary Ralph Recto. Philippine economic planners expect export receipts to fall this year and this doesn't
bode well for workers, especially for those employed in labor-intensive manufacturing companies.
Indeed, several companies reported either laying off workers or cutting working hours as the crisis reduced demand for
Philippine exports.
In Luzon, northern Philippines, Intel Corp., the first US semiconductor firm that established a facility in the
Philippines, shut down its factory and retrenched 1,800 workers. In Cebu, southern Philippines, furniture maker and
exporter Giardini del Sole Inc. has temporarily shut down and laid off about 250 workers as a result of the financial
crisis.
The Philippine Labor Department reported that 40,000 workers were retrenched, 33,000 workers are experiencing
shorter working hours while over 5,400 overseas Filipino workers were displaced because of the crisis.
Dennis Arroyo, director of national planning and policy of the National Economic and Development Authority,
forecast that as much as 200,000 workers may be laid off as the crisis continues to hurt the local economy.
However, the director doesn't expect the unemployment level to hit double-digit levels which were recorded several
years ago. In a paper issued last month, Josef T. Yap, president of the Philippine Institute for Development Studies,
expect unemployment levels to stay at current levels.
"Assuming that the economy will not decelerate further in 2009, there is reason to be cautiously optimistic that the
unemployment rate will not rise beyond 6.8 percent in the next few months," he said.
Recto conceded the crisis will pressure the employment situation, but he believed that the strong macroeconomic
fundamentals combined with the 330-billion-peso (about 6.84 billion US dollars) stimulus package will cap the growth
in unemployment rate.
For this year, despite the global recession, the Philippine GDP is expected to expand at 3.7 percent to 4.4 percent.
Recto said the easing of inflation (estimated to hit 3.9 percent this year compared to last year's 9.3 percent) will boost
consumption and keep the economy afloat. The stimulus package -- the bulk of which will be used to build
infrastructures -- will create 800,000 new jobs.
Luz Lorenzo, regional economist of the ATR Kim Eng Securities, agrees that the consumption driving Philippine
economy will be resilient this year. But such economic growth, she said, is not high enough to absorb the burgeoning
labor force.
"The economy will not fall in the deep end. But neither will it be a bed of roses. Unemployment will remain a
problem," she said. Migration: by need not by choice
The lack of opportunities in the Philippines will force most Filipinos to seek greener pastures abroad. Every year,
around one million Filipinos go overseas, mostly forced to leave their families to provide them with a better life.
Father Corros said most of the retrenched migrant workers that the Episcopal Commission on Migrants and Itinerants
has been assisting in the past few months still prefer to work overseas instead of just staying in their own country.
"Migrating is the only option for them because they can't find jobs here," he said, adding that "we go back to the same
problem. They go abroad because it's difficult to look for jobs here."
The Philippines is one of the world's biggest labor exporters, with 10 percent of its over 80 million population living
abroad. Migration has long been part of the Philippine government's strategy to solve the unemployment problem.
This policy started in the 1970s when then Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, faced with huge levels of foreign
debt and the oil crisis, sent construction workers to the Middle East. This was done to rein in the rising unemployment
levels and avoid growing social unrest. Thirty years later, Filipinos continue to leave in droves -- working as
entertainers, domestic helpers, nurses, caregivers, seafarers and programmers.
The global crisis may have slowed businesses and even retrenched more than 5,000 Filipino migrant workers but
analysts and government officials believed that there will be demand for Philippine labor abroad.
Philippine President Gloria Macapagal- Arroyo directed the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration to
aggressively market Filipino labor and expertise abroad.
This kind of policy has long been criticized by migrant rights advocates, explaining that migration, although it brought
in the much needed remittances, also caused social problems. Numerous migrant workers have been physically and
sexually abused and have to endure exploitative working conditions.
The separation also breaks family ties and hurt the children who were left behind by their parents. What is needed, they
said, is for the government to develop an economy that will provide decent jobs and will make migration a choice, not a
necessity, for most of the country's labor force.
The current global economic crisis, however, doesn't offer such option. The country's economic managers said one of
the factors that will support the consumption-driven economy is the steady inflow of remittances. Labor deployment
will therefore remain a key government policy.
"We see a steady labor demand in the Middle East, Australia and elsewhere which are responding to the crisis by
embarking on infrastructure projects with their own stimulus packages," Recto said in last week's economic briefing.
Analysts said most Filipinos in the United States -- one of the top destination countries for Filipino migrants -- will
keep their jobs as they're usually employed in the recession-proof healthcare sectors. Industrialized economies with
aging populations will continue to seek cheap, English-proficient and skilled nurses and caregivers from countries like
the Philippines.
The Philippines is one of the world's biggest exporters of health care workers. Every year, over 8,000 Filipino nurses
and 14, 000 caregivers were deployed. Outsourcing industry offers new jobs
There are some bright spots in the domestic labor market. The business process outsourcing (BPO) industry is expected
to remain bullish. BPO revenues are forecasted to grow by 20 percent to 30 percent this year and companies expected
to hire 100,000 new workers.
"A lot of companies are under a lot of pressure to cut cost so I think it will accelerate outsourcing," said Alfredo Ayala,
CEO of LiveIt Solutions, Inc., the holding company for Ayala Corporation's investments in business process
outsourcing.
Call centers will remain the biggest revenue earner and employer in the BPO sector. But BPO executives believe that
the growing demand for the high-value non-voice outsourcing sectors such as animation, software development and
back office will offer opportunities to the country's programmers, graphic designers and accountants.
"Right now, we're really leading in the contact center sector. But now we're trying to change that. We're trying to
expand to the higher value non-voice services," said Ma. Cristina Coronel, president of the Philippine Software
Industry Association.
Job openings, however, will not necessarily translate into full- time employment. BPOs offer a lot of perks and benefits
to its employees but very few are qualified to work in the industry. To solve this problem, BPOs are offering
workshops and scholarships to expand its talent pool.
Dennis Posadas, deputy executive director of the Philippine Congressional Commission on Science, Technology and
Engineering, said that as far as outsourcing in the information technology sector is concerned, very few are qualified to
take the jobs because many are not adequately trained. "We still need to improve basic education in our pubic schools.
They need to emphasize on science and math education," he said.

http://www.jpsimbulan.com/2008/07/22/oversupply-of-nurses-in-the-philippines-largely-contributes-to-the-philippine-unemployment-rate/

Oversupply of Nurses in the Philippines Largely Contributes to the Philippine Unemployment Rate
My wife and I were discussing Nursing trends and issues last night and one of the topics we dealt with was the oversupply of nurses in the
Philippines. The discussion was prompted by her batchmates in college comlaining about the difficulty of finding job opportunities for nurses
or nursing graduates. This was no longer a shocking news because it’s a common knowledge that nursing job opportunites are scarce in the
country, hence, the graduates’ perseverance to work abroad as caregivers, dental assistants, nursing aides, etc. Do we really have an
oversupply of nurses in the Philippines? Read on if you wish to find out .
Oversupply of nurses in the Philippines is reflected in recent statistics which shows that as of 2008, there are 460 accredited Nursing schools in
the Philippines. The total BS Nursing graduates reached 67,728 in the same year. More than 70,000 (adding the number of those who did not
pass the board exam in their previous attempt/s) were expected to take the June 2008 Nursing Board Examination given and administered by
the Philippine Regulation Commission (PRC). How many of these examinees will pass the board exam? That we do not know yet but the trend
shows that only between 60-70% pass the board exam each year. Taking all things constant, the remaining 30-40% (non-passers) account for
about 21,000-28,000 unregistered nurses who cannot put their education to good use because of stringent employment requirements even in
their own localities. This goes to show that many of our nursing graduates in the Philippines are either unemployed or underemployed. In my
rough estimation, the unemployment rate of nurses/nursing graduates could be between 50,000-60,000 per year.
As to deployment abroad, starting in 2006, between 13,000-15,000 Registered Nurses (RN) have been deployed abroad every year. Locally, it
seems these nurses cannot find gainful employment because very few job openings are available. If they can ever find jobs here, there is a high
likelihood that there will be a job mismatch because as I have seen in the past, BS Nursing graduates work in department stores as clerks, in
food chains as service crews, in government agencies as secretaries and the like. The oversupply of nurses in the Philippines is becoming a
serious problem. With the increasing number of nursing students enrolled each year, we will certainly produce more and more unemployed
individuals after their graduation (as we experienced many years ago). The sad thing is we are not producing hundreds or a few thousands of
unemployed nurses but tens of thousand on a yearly basis.
As of late, the New Philippine Nursing Curriculum has been revamped and included two new subjects. With this New Nursing Curriculum,
concerned parties like parents and students have expressed their grievances over the addition of the new subjects because they will definitely
spell more expenses. Taking into account the crises (yes folks, plural!) that we have here in the Philippines, this scenario is unacceptable to the
majority of parents and students affected by the revamp in the BS Nursing curricullum. Did this incident discourage students from enrolling in
the BS Nursing program? Nope. Not a bit. Nursing as a course and profession will remain attractive to Filipinos because of its promising
material benefits in the future. In view of this, oversupply of nurses in the Philippines will continue, which is implied by latest trends in the
supply of and demand for Filipino nurses here and abroad.
How can we possibly regulate, if not eliminate, the oversupply of nurses in the Philippines? Personally, if I were in the position to recommend
to the Philippine government policies regarding this subject, I would recommend the strict regulation of Nursing schools applying for
accreditation as one of the many ways to ensure quality nursing education. Licenses of Nursing schools which cannot provide quality education
should be revoked. Also, students who want to enroll in the BS Nursing program should be screened thoroughly. “Filtering” should be done up
to their third year in the degree program. If school administrators find the student unfit for the course, then they should tell the students to shift
to another course as early as possible or at least put them on probation to see if the students’ academic performance will improve after one
semester. Nursing is not the only course in the Philippines. Students whose hearts are not into it should not be forced by parents or relatives to
take BS Nursing out of their hopes that their children will make more money after graduation. Take money out of the equation and we’ll have a
better chance to produce better and more productive healthcare professionals. Add to that, we will be able to balance the distribution of
students enrolling in different degree programs over the years to come, which could help us solve our country’s problem regarding oversupply
of nurses.
http://www.up.edu.ph/upforum.php?i=68&pg=108

The FORUM ROUNDTABLE on the EMPLOYMENT SITUATION in the COUNTRY

What are the prospects for full employment in the Philippines?

Esguerra: The question seems to presume that there is a common understanding of the meaning and implications of the term full employment
and an agreement about what unemployment rate is consistent with full employment. The term carries several meanings in economics that
space constraints do not permit discussing here, and though economists generally agree that the full-employment unemployment rate is not
zero, there is no unique or “magic” number that is associated with it. It might be more productive to think of the question in the following
terms: what are the prospects for attaining the government’s employment objectives as enunciated in its development plan for the period 2004-
2010?
For starters, the jobs situation in the Philippines has not considerably improved since the Asian crisis, both quantitatively and qualitatively. The
double-digit rates for open unemployment in the last five years (2001-2005) have been the highest in recent memory, surpassed only by those
experienced during the crisis years of the Marcos period (Figure 1). In fact, the unemployment rate in the period 2001-2005 is higher than in
any five-year period since 1980.
Since adopting a new definition of unemployment in April 2005, the government has been reporting single-digit unemployment rates. The
latest figure (for April 2006) shows an unemployment rate of 8.2 percent, compared with 8.3 percent for April 2005. Had the previous
definition been used, however, the unemployment rate for April 2006 would stand at 11.8 percent, compared with 12.7 percent in April 2005.
Aggregate employment has been increasing since 2000. However, performance thus far still falls short of the government’s own quantitative
target of 1.4 to 1.6 million jobs a year, as stated in the Medium-Term Philippine Development Plan (MTPDP) for 2004-2010. The problem is
not just in absorbing new labor force entrants but in reducing the unemployment backlog as well. Qualitatively, the job growth so far
experienced does not appear to have been accompanied by significant improvements in people’s incomes and material welfare. For instance,
the incidence of underemployment has been rising recently, as well as the share of unpaid family workers among the employed.
Independent estimates, as well as the government’s own estimates, indicate that achieving the MTPDP employment targets requires real GDP
to grow by 7-8 percent annually until 2010. This has never been achieved in recent experience, not even in more favorable times. It is unlikely
that it will be achieved at present, given the various international and domestic factors bearing down on the economy. Already, the government
has reduced its growth targets for this year and the next.
How much headway can be made toward sustaining growth in employment and incomes in the coming years depends upon how well the
government is able to create the necessary conditions for broad-based growth. Apart from policies supportive of macroeconomic growth and
stability, sectoral policies such as those meant to modernize agriculture and raise the competitiveness of small and medium enterprises will be
crucial for labor absorption.
The prospects for reducing unemployment over the long term also depend on progress made toward reducing population growth, as well as
toward raising the quality of the labor force through investments in education and training. The latter is especially critical if we want to benefit
from the opportunities made available by new technologies in manufacturing and the modern service industries.
Ofreneo: Full employment will not happen in the near future or in the medium term. The Philippines has one of the highest unemployment
rates in Asia. The rate of joblessness was in the double digits throughout the l990s up to the first half of the 2000s. In 2005, the unemployment
rate fell to a single digit when the government re-defined the ‘unemployed’ Filipino as someone possessing all the following characteristics:
(a) of working age, (b) without work, (c) seeking work, and (d) available for work if such is available. But despite the definitional acrobatics,
the unemployment rate as of April 2006 reached 8.2 percent, or twice the rate obtaining in most of our East Asian neighbors (with the
exception of Indonesia). Moreover, 8.5 million or over one-fourth of the 33 million employed are officially classified as underemployed—
those with jobs yet are still seeking additional hours of work. The gravity of the underemployment problem can readily be seen in the huge
number of ‘unpaid family workers’—four million in all! Without the estimated 8 million overseas migrant Filipino workers, saang
kangkungan pupulutin ang Pilipinas?
The employment crisis is directly traceable to the failure of the economy to take off under a narrow export-oriented industrial development
program. Past and present government technocrats, with hefty nudging from the IMF and the World Bank, engineered an all-out liberalization,
instead of an all-out capacity build-up, for the industrial and agricultural sectors. The results are disastrous. The Philippines is one Asian
country with a shrinking industrial sector, as measured in its contribution to the GDP and to overall employment. The economic landscape is,
in fact, littered with the carcasses of dea SITUd industries—shoe manufacture, tire, textile, oil refining, pulp and paper, plastic, chemical, steel,
auto parts, etc. On the other hand, the export-oriented electronics assembly and garments industries are unable to offset the job losses in the
domestic industrial sector; employment in garments has been going down since the mid-1990s, while electronics has stopped growing since
2000—no thanks to China, Asia’s vacuum cleaner.
With a weak industrial sector and a rapidly-stagnating agricultural sector, the only catch basin for the unemployed and underemployed is the
service sector, whose informal (and unprotected) sub-sector now accounts for over half of the employed in the country. However, the formal
sub-sector of services is also expanding, due partly to the spending by OFW families, to the delight of SM’s Henry Sy who now has more than
40 malls in the archipelago. The service sector is also growing because of the accident of an industry, the global call center industry, which is
growing by leaps and bounds and is absorbing a large number of UP graduates and even undergraduate students. Those who can speak with
an American twang, handle the ICT technology, endure long nocturnal hours have a ‘yuppie’ job waiting for them in Eastwood, Ortigas,
Makati, Alabang, and so on.
To attain full employment or reduce unemployment and underemployment at the normal East Asian level of 4 to 6 percent, the country must
learn to nurture back to health its industrial and agricultural sectors by abandoning policies which have not worked.
Galvez Tan: The prospects for full employment in the Philippines are bleak. There are not enough jobs being generated annually by the
market. Unemployment rates and underemployment rates have been double digit for the past several years. Based on the Labor Force Survey
of 2003 (done every 3 years by the NSO), unemployment rate has been 10.1%, while underemployment rate 15.7%. Foreign investments, that
could generate more jobs, are at their lowest since 1986. Domestic investments for the past 5 years (2001-2005) have not matched the level of
economic vibrancy during the decade 1987-1996.
Regarding the employment in the health sector, there has always been a great demand for health professionals especially in the rural areas, both
in the public and private sectors. However, there are always few takers. The Visayas and Mindanao areas have been suffering from chronic
vacancies in hospitals, clinics and rural health units. Medical specialists are mainly concentrated in Metro Manila, Metro Cebu, Metro Davao,
Central Luzon and the Calabarzon Region. Outside of these urban centers, there are either few or no surgeons, obstetricians, pediatricians,
internists in the medical sector; and there are hardly any nurses and midwives with master’s degrees, with administrative skills, and with
special clinical nursing skills, e.g. operating room nursing, cardiovascular nursing, psychiatric nursing. This year, there are more than 120
municipalities without a medical doctor and more than 500 vacancies in medical positions in public hospitals. There are more than 2,000
vacancies for nurses in rural hospitals and clinics. In terms of market competition, the rural health system always loses out to the urban and
overseas markets.
Pernia: In the fields of journalism, broadcast communication, and film there is a supply of potential content providers, as there are many
schools of mass communication. However, demand is limited because the newspapers, magazines, broadcast networks, and film companies in
the country are themselves limited in number. Even online publications are neither fully developed nor fully able to hire news staff on a full-
time basis. Nonetheless, graduates of UP College of Mass Communication (CMC) are more likely to enter allied fields, e.g., advertising, PR,
corporate communication, public information, media management, etc. A recent trend is for our graduates (sometimes, even those short of
graduation) to be employed in call centers.
The broadcast industry is not expected to expand in the next few years, given that the current utilization of available broadcast frequencies are
at maximum levels and the Philippines is not opening new bandwidth. The prospects for expansion lie in cable and online, since these do not
have the technical constraints of broadcast.
Similarly, in the field of journalism, more opportunities will open up in the online industry in the next decade, given the trends in technological
development, increasing dependencies of audiences on electronic media for their news and information, and hiring patterns in Western
countries (i.e., in the US, journalism graduates are hired as online content providers).
In a scenario where cable and online operations dominate mediated communication for information and entertainment, new skills will be
demanded of its practitioners. Hence, formal educational institutions such as CMC need to be up-to-date—even pioneering—in the training of
potential workers for the redefined industries.
The reverse is true for communication and media research, i.e., supply is limited as only UP offers such a program. Demand is strong and
growing steadily across the spectrum of media and knowledge industries.
Meanwhile, the area of growth for film is in independent digital film making. While UP CMC film students are normally dispersed in allied
fields upon graduation, those who do enter the film industry (whether mainstream or independent) in upper echelon jobs as screenwriters,
directors, production designers, and editors have been largely successful.
A unique characteristic of the mainstream film industry is its aversion for hiring graduates of a four-year degree program in film. This industry
has historically been run as a family business; hence, its practitioners come to it via practical immersion (the so-called school of hard knocks)
and formal degree holders are unappreciated.
Amante: Classical employment demand means the capacity of the economy to absorb additional members of the labor force. According to the
January 2006 labor force survey by the National Statistics Office, there were 55,248,000 Filipinos of working age. Of this number, 35,224,000
were either employed or looking for jobs, among whom 2.8 million couldn’t find any. The unemployment rate is 8.1 percent, much higher than
the 7.4 percent rate of joblessness just three months earlier, in October 2005. This number would have swelled some more had not some
980,000 workers went abroad as Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) to work for foreign employers.
Among the 32.4 million Filipinos employed, 21.3 percent or 6.9 million were underemployed, higher than in October 2005 (21.2 percent). The
“underemployed” are those who either wanted to work full-time, get second jobs or move to other jobs that would pay better. This means that
the jobs generated in the past year fell short not only in quantity, but also in quality. Quality of employment also include the dimensions of
decent work—voice at the workplace through repre-sentation and freedom of association, improvement in working conditions through
collective bargaining and negotiations between employers and workers, no employment discri-mination through equal pay for equal work,
health and safety, and others. Philippine labor standards and human resource development are part of employment quality. You could
imagine the deficit, or the gap which need to be addressed.
Ellson: Let me first define full employment. It is “a fundamental socio-economic goal that requires the absence of cyclical unemployment.”
Full employment is a concept closely related to the notion of efficiency of the economic system, that is, whether all of its resources—land,
human resources, or capital—are gainfully optimized or employed.
The Philippines has around 37,000,000 to 40,000,000 labor force entrants (15 years old and over), with an employment rate of 90 to 92 percent.
Consequently, there is an unemployment rate of 8 to 10 percent. On top of this unemployment rate, we also have the underemployment issue
(those who are not fully or gainfully employed) at around 20 to 21 percent.
The next question is to determine whether our unemployment and underemployment is cyclical, resulting from depressions or recessions or the
downturns in real GDP growth. We know for a fact that this is a debatable issue. Some would claim that we have attained real GDP growth
while majority of the labor sector would say there is no real growth simply because they remain underemployed or unemployed.
The prospects for full employment in the Philippines may not be gleaned simply by looking at the supply and demand factors. We also need to
examine how we fare in the global market. Have we achieved a high enough level of competitiveness to ensure employment security and
higher employment ratio? How are our workers recognized in terms of competency in the labor market? Do we offer the lowest possible cost
of production of goods and services with the highest quality or standards? Are we pursuing efficiency, security, and equity?
The goal of full employment requires that there be no cyclical unemployment or underemployment. Furthermore, unemployment and
underemployment are painful and enduring consequences of failure to cope with environmental change. I believe that the goal of full
employment is a vital and legitimate objective our system can pursue or dream of, but, sad to say, it can’t be reached.
Do you think the UP�s academic programs and course offerings continue to give its graduates a
competitive edge, both locally and globally? Would you have suggestions along this line?

Daria: The competitive edge of UP graduates lies in the educational package that the students acquire during their studies at UP. The
University ensures that its graduates are independent and have the discipline to keep learning new things. In UP, the students are not spoon-fed
with information but encouraged to search for knowledge on their own. Such discipline provides UP graduates with a competitive advantage,
especially in a dynamic labor environment where employees are required to be more receptive to rapid technological changes.
The competitive edge of UP graduates lies in the educational package that the students acquire during their studies at UP. The University
ensures that its graduates are independent and have the discipline to keep learning new things. In UP, the students are not spoon-fed with
information but encouraged to search for knowledge on their own. Such discipline provides UP graduates with a competitive advantage,
especially in a dynamic labor environment where employees are required to be more receptive to rapid technological changes.
UP graduates are also encouraged to be self-motivated, creative, and free thinking. Such qualities are required attributes for the work force,
especially in the managerial level of an organization. The level of competitiveness within industries today requires that these industries be
dynamic and able to deliver high-quality products or services. This can be achieved with a work force that is not sluggish and can cope with
the pressures of a dynamic working environment.
UP’s undergraduate academic programs and course offerings still provide students with the necessary skills for the labor market. For example,
the undergraduate programs are able to address the need of manufacturing companies for a work force with basic knowledge in science and
engineering.
However, given the growing knowledge-intensive labor market in both the local and global arena, UP needs to prioritize the upgrading of its
graduate programs. The UP graduate programs should be designed and implemented so that students are able to finish in the least amount of
time without sacrificing the quality of their education. This requires the full attention of UP faculty members who are involved in the various
graduate programs.
Ofreneo: Does a diploma still matter? Yes, a diploma from UP matters a lot. The efficiency wage policy of the call center/BPO, banking, and
other industries is tilted in favor of UP graduates. They constitute the cream of the labor market.
The UP graduates also happen to constitute the cream of the Filipino migrant population. The leading doctors, nurses, engineers, musicians,
programmers, media specialists, finance executives, production managers, and other Filipino talents in the overseas labor market are UP
graduates. The question is: are these talents better used at home where the grass has been wilting due to economic mismanagement, poor
governance, and lack of nationalism on the part of those who lead?
The bigger question, of course, is: can UP help transform Philippine society and the economy so that its graduates need not agonize about
leaving or not leaving their country of birth? This is the more relevant question to raise now that UP is approaching its centennial.
Guevara: The demand for both skilled labor and professional employment in the Philippines is high. However, most vocational schools,
colleges, and universities do not completely provide the training needed for full employment. If one considers the number of IT graduates in the
Philippines and the demand for IT professionals, the numbers look good. However, most of the IT graduates are absorbed into low-value-added
IT activities such as call center operation. In terms of high-value-added IT activities, we see companies pirating highly trained professionals
from one another.
If we look at the results of IT examinations in the Philippines, such as JITSE, now known as NITSE, we see the discrepancy between the
training available and the skills needed for employment. The UP IT Training Center (UP ITTC), a JICA (Japan International Cooperation
Agency)-funded facility in UP, is one short-term solution to the current state of IT training in the country. IT graduates can acquire the needed
skills for full employment at the UP ITTC.
The UP diploma remains the ticket to competitive employment both locally and globally. A good benchmark is the salary that companies are
willing to pay fresh graduates of UP. Some of UP’s fresh graduates receive salaries that are even higher than the highest salary in the
University. Companies are knocking on our door, demanding more graduates and contributing to our resources to help us maintain our
standards. The periodic review of our curriculum and dialogues with industry lend distinction to our degree programs and graduates. The
challenge is how to replicate our programs on a national scale. It would need the cooperation of the CHED (Commission on Higher Education),
DOST (Department of Science and Technology), NEDA (National Economic Development Authority), BOI-DTI (Board of Investments-
Department of Trade and Industry)`, local universities, and colleges to equalize the supply and demand for local and global employment of
Filipinos.
Galvez Tan: Yes, for me UP graduates continue to have a competitive edge both locally and globally due mainly to UP’s academic programs
and course offerings. UP graduates remain in great demand and are readily employable.
While UP graduates are in demand globally, the UP system must still respond to the needs of national development. The sense of patriotism
and nationalism must continue to burn in the hearts of our faculty, students and alumni. Academic excellence will always be there in the UP
system, but love of country and the will to work for national progress must also be a major passion.
The world and the Philippines are also in constant search for new knowledge, skills and attitudes that will make humankind and Mother Earth
live with more peace, harmony, tolerance, justice, happiness and health. In practical terms, more employment, more equity and opportunities
for the marginalized, wealth creation and poverty eradication. Thus the UP, being the premiere university and eventually the National
University of the Philippines, must also continuously contribute to the search for new knowledge and technology in a 21st century way.
One way of conducting this search more effectively is to utilize the different campuses to work in synergy with each other, using their
individualized strengths to create dynamic and progressive academic programs and course offerings that will keep up with global developments
that will impact on Philippine development.
One example is the development of academic programs that will enhance the formulation of natural products for health and wellness, whether
terrestrial or marine, whether flora or fauna. While there have been research projects ( e.g. NIRPROMP or the Natural Integrated Research
Program on Medicinal Plants) on natural products involving the campuses of Los Banos, Diliman and Manila for the last 30 years (since 1977),
there have been no new academic courses nor course offerings involving the expertise of the 3 campuses on natural product development. UP
Visayas could very well join in, due to their special focus on the marine sciences.
The world has been increasing its demand for natural health and wellness products. The Philippines, because of its biodiversity, can be the
future Global Capital of Tropical Health Products/Tropical Herbal Medicines. But our scientific and technological pursuits have not advanced
as the world has advanced in this particular field. The wealth creation opportunities through industry, business, entrepreneurship, marketing and
management of natural products have been bypassing the Philippines, yet the natural resources and talents are here. This is where UP can be
more inventive and innovative and further contribute to national socio-economic development.
Other examples are in the field of: (a) health social sciences and information technology; (b) ethics and health sciences; (c) engineering,
physical sciences, rehabilitation medicine, orthopedic surgery with physical and occupation therapy; (d) nursing, education and business
management; (e) molecular biology and biochemistry, engineering, pharmacy and pharmacology; and many more
UP will have to conceptualize its academic programs in entirely new ways. The barriers for inter-campus academic development have to be
broken down. Mutual cooperation among the various disciplines, joint programs and joint granting of degrees, cross enrolments among
campuses will have to be nurtured. UP must continue its traditions of trail-blazing and inventiveness for genuine national development, and
imprint its mark on the globe. Let there be more employment opportunities for Filipinos via these new sciences and new technological
breakthroughs.
Pernia: Among employers from print and broadcast news companies, UP CMC graduates are preferred over graduates of other schools. Such a
situation makes the prospects for full employment even more limited for non-UP graduates. However, some news managers prefer graduates of
non-Journalism courses—specifically Economics. They argue that it is better to hire someone content-knowledgeable as s/he can be trained to
write on the job. This situation has caused the CMC to review its curricula to make sure that our courses balance content and form.
Communication and media technologies are in constant development. This being the case, the curricula of the UP CMC for journalism,
broadcast communication, communication research, and film need to be constantly evaluated and upgraded. Although there is the desire to
ensure that our graduates are competitive in the technology aspect of mediated communication, this is more often than not impossible to
achieve. The competitive edge of our graduates lies in their creativity, their ability to think critically and work independently, their appreciation
for the value of research and objective data, their social consciousness, and their sensitivity to ethical concerns.
Amante: It is important that the University consider doing a research to evaluate the employability of its graduates. Among the University’s
graduates, how many are actually employed, and in what fields? Is there a match between their jobs and their university education? How
many went abroad? I would welcome an opportunity to work with University colleagues on this question.
Ellson: To attain competitive advantage and survive the stiff labor market competition, we must develop a work force of skilled, competent,
highly productive Filipinos who are able to cope with any change in the environment, including the possibility of losing a job or not getting a
job at all.
With the changes brought about by the globalized economy, the University must also pursue innovativeness. A way to do this is by
undertaking a sincere and honest analysis of the needs of the community that we serve. We must be sensitive enough to adjust to the demands
of the times. We must develop new courses in response to and aligned with the requirements of the private sector and civil society.
I think that the University must also focus on preparing our graduates to be qualified workers (as defined earlier). The critical role of education
and training is raising the levels of labor productivity and acquisition of competency. We must not only produce graduates who are innovators,
critical thinkers, and researchers. Above all, we must also teach them to deal with changes in the environment, to manage in the event of a
worst-case scenario, and to survive in the real world.
What are your perceptions on the current advantage of Filipinos in terms of the labor market?

Esguerra: In today’s increasingly competitive environment, productivity is the key to employability and sustained increases in incomes. That a
good number of our work force can find employment as skilled workers and professionals (e.g. mechanics, merchant marines, physical
therapists, school teachers, nurses, computer programmers) overseas is indicative of Philippines’ advantage in certain segments of the global
labor market. The 2006 State of Philippine Competitiveness report (prepared by the Asian Institute of Management Policy Center) also
mentions services and management as areas where the Philippines is globally competitive.
However, the Philippines does not fare very well when it comes to overall productivity. This only means that while our work force may possess
some advantage with respect to certain skills and attributes valued in the labor market, its productivity is also determined by exogenous factors
(e.g., general economic conditions, government policies, technology choice, R&D investments) which influence how labor is utilized.
Investments in education and training are necessary in order to continually develop the skills needed to work with new technologies and attain
higher productivity. At the level of the workplace, this means greater profitability and opportunities for employment upon the expansion of
businesses. At the individual level, this means higher pay and incomes. Unfortunately, current weaknesses in the educational system of the
Philippines now pose a serious threat to its competitiveness, contributing to the erosion of its attractiveness as an investment location. I think it
was Chairman Mao who once said, “The important thing is to be good at learning.” Raising the quality of basic education—as borne out by
improvements in math and science test scores—should be an urgent priority of public policy.
Daria: In the labor market, Filipinos who get through the educational system are generally hard-working and able to adapt to a variety of labor
conditions. Filipinos with college degrees are relatively skilled and can fulfill the requirements of a range of employment categories. Filipinos
with degrees for basic health-care services probably comprise the majority of those with college degrees. The knowledge-base and skills
required for these professions are fully established, and universities and schools offering these courses have acquired some degree of integrity.
Their performance can be measured by the services offered by our domestic hospitals and the high demand for our medical professionals
overseas.
The popularity of the medical profession is due to the fact that Filipinos are ensured entry into the global labor market after graduating from
college. In the science and engineering professions, the labor market is supplied with a small number of skilled Filipinos who have gone
through a stringent filtering process, which begins with their need to be multilingual. They must master the English language in order to
appreciate and fully grasp basic math and science skills. Such a system discriminates against Filipinos who may be creative and good in science
and engineering but don’t have the capacity to be multilingual.
Those who are able to get past the challenge of language are further filtered by the educational opportunities made available to them. The
credibility of graduates in the science and engineering professions depends on the capabilities of various Philippine universities and schools to
have a good faculty and keep up with current technologies. These types of professions require constant re-evaluation as the knowledge-base
and skills quickly change with the rapid technological developments. Hence, the small number of Filipinos who get through this process have a
relatively high level of English proficiency and a decent science and engineering degree. Their services are most attractive to local and
multinational industries.
Amante: Aside from skills, competencies and employer-related dimensions of work such as those required by industries, it is important to
consider that work is a means to human life. It is not the other way around. The values are opposite in many countries where Filipinos work.
Mindsets, work values, and human relations affect the way workers and employers deal with each other. It is said that Filipino workers
overseas are valued more for their being able to “care” totally, to “smile,” and to “adapt” to foreign cultures, and the ability to give emotional
support. In short, the “human element” is now an important commodity for exchange in the global labor market. This is one consequence of
globalization in employment, when basic human nature becomes a rare prized commodity and enters the labor market.
Pernia: Until the 1980s, Filipinos were the prized production staff (i.e., from cameraman to director) in television networks across ASEAN.
Asian television executives considered the Filipino production style excellent and unique—a trait that was not yet fully developed among their
own production staff. This explained the hiring and pirating of Filipinos to take charge of the news and entertainment programs in television
networks in Indonesia, Thailand, and Brunei, among other places. However, that advantage of Filipinos may now be waning.
Meanwhile, graduates of journalism in Philippine schools—and most particularly the UP CMC—maintain a decided advantage because our
students are given the same kind and level of training as Western (read: US) schools, unlike journalism graduates of our ASEAN neighbors
who follow a more developmental approach to news writing, news gathering, and news delivery.
Similarly, graduates of our film program receive training that keeps up with developments in the industry, particularly digital filmmaking. This
situation puts our graduates at a more advantageous position than even schools which are better endowed technologically.
The flexibility of communication research as a discipline, making it applicable to a wide range of industries, is a clear advantage of our
graduates. In handling technical data, these graduates are able to make sense of the information in a way that allows understanding and
appreciation by the layman, which thereby ensures practical utilization of the information.
Galvez Tan: Filipinos continue to remain competitive in the global labor market. Filipino workers, whether professionals or skilled, overall,
command respect, honor and dignity in their work places and societies where they live. The Philippines, however has to continuously re-
engineer its work force, especially where Filipinos have a competitive edge, like seafaring, nursing, engineering, accounting, and education.
We have to maintain our excellence and quality by ensuring that Filipino human resources development standards keep up with global
standards and technology development.
The recent erosions in the production of our nurses and seafarers must be managed well less we lose the number one position in the world as
suppliers of the best nurses and best seafarers. The regulatory systems in government have not been able to ensure that national standards are
followed in human resources production. There is also a lack of private sector initiative for self-regulation of nursing education and the nursing
profession. The same is true for the private seafaring organizations and institutions. On an urgent note, a clear strategic medium- to long-term
development plan must be formulated for these service professions and work forces. This exercise must be participated in by the major
stakeholders in these professions.
Ellson: That we are an English-speaking people is one of our advantages over other workers in Asia. But since other countries are now
training their work force to learn English, this advantage is temporary. Filipinos are also known for indus-triousness, patience, and
perseverance. Of course, it must be remembered that these characteristics must be matched with competence and high productivity.
It is worth noting that to compete in the global labor market, our workers must not only be flexible, highly skilled, and trained. The issue of
competitive advantage also depends highly on the cost of labor. To compete is to offer labor with the highest quality at the lowest possible cost
of hiring and maintenance.

Others

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1955369/

http://www.indexmundi.com/philippines/unemployment_rate.html

http://www.google.com.ph/#hl=tl&biw=1152&bih=661&q=Nurses+employment+rate+in+and+outside+the+Phi
lippines&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&fp=83a5c5b2151f6acb