The ranks of unemployed person have exhibited an increasing trend since 1998, along with the swelling in the labour force and the moderate performance of economy.  Except for a minor decline in 1999, the number of unemployed has increased gradually from 3.043 million in 1998 to 3.874 million in 2002.  As a ratio to labor force, the rate of unemployment declined slightly from 10.3 percent in 1998 to 9.8 percent in 1999.  It rose to 11.2 percent in 2000 and has remained at almost the same rate in 2001 and 2002.

Meanwhile, the education and training sector has been continuously producing a number of graduates of various courses/ disciplines.  In the professional category alone, there is actually an increasing trend of graduates mostly from Business Administration and related fields, Education and Teacher Training, Engineering, Medical and allied fields and Mathematics and Information Technology.  The same increasing trend is also being experienced in the Post-Secondary Level (Tech-Voc), where bulk of the graduates finished Electronics and Related trades, Information Technology, Computer Science Courses, Secretarial, hotel and restaurant management, and Automotive Diesel Technology.  On the average, the sector is producing around 350,000 graduates from the degree courses and around 750,000 from the tech-voc courses.

On the other hand, job vacancies posted in a number of communication media:  from newspaper ads to radio announcements to Internet subscription (e.g., Phil-JobNet, jobsdb.com jobstreet.com) are also increasing.  Despite the huge pool of graduates and other prospective workers, hard-to-fill jobs continuously appear day-in and day-out.  Could this be a structural problem?

Indeed, there exists a structural unemployment problem in the country.  Although we can truly say that the recurring unemployment problem (and to some extent underemployment) is also an outcome of the combined results of the high fertility rates experienced by the country in the past three decades, which contributed to the faster rate of expansion of the working-age population and the economy’s inability to generate enough employment, a mismatch in the education and training outputs vis-à-vis employment requirements and utilization appears to be a major problem as well.  The said mismatch clearly takes place given the oversupply of labor and the quality of workers needed by the industries.

Factors contributing to the mismatch vary from issues relating to education and training, hiring practices, as well as the attitude of prospective workers toward jobs.  First our education and training institutions are plagued with a number of problems like the over-subscription of certain courses (e.g., business administration) and under-subscription in certain priority courses; low survival rate (average 68 percent)/ graduation rate (average 46 percent), and low performance in licensure examinations (average 45 percent in various fields).  Although undoubtedly, we have been producing more than a million graduates of degree and non-degree courses, the characteristics/ quality of these graduates appear to be questionable, if not problematic.  In fact, despite our having a large pool of educated, English-speaking and highly trainable manpower, a number of employers still raised the issue of poor communication skills of applicants.  Adding to these problems are the proliferation sub-standard education and training institutions, which are characterized by poor curricula, inadequate teacher training and low investment in education, as well as its unequal distribution in the country.

Another factor contributing to the problem is the tendency of the industry to be selective/ very particular in their hiring practices, which delimit the opportunities of most graduates in finding better careers that pay well.  Companies also have preferences as to the school where the applicants graduated (DLSU, Ateneo de Manila and UP), age requirements (usually prime working years, 25-35 years old), experience (at least 2 years).  Moreover, even if the aforementioned preferential requirements are present, the prospective employers are looking for minimum levels of competencies/ proficiencies, and good communication skills, which they usually find absent in most of the graduates.  They term this as skills deficiency, which is the main result of poor school curricula. 

The attitude of prospective workers toward jobs also forms part of the problem.  It is a prevalent practice among graduates to proceed to graduate school after completing their courses and not attempt to look for work on the belief that no work is available.  This long waiting time also means longer or stronger labor force attachment of prospective workers -– making them a clear candidate for inclusion to the pool of educated unemployed.

Moreover, even the under-utilisation of some of the government services like the career guidance counseling available is also another factor in the mismatch.  Said under-utilisation led to the deprivation of student on information regarding `in-demand’ skills, courses, and/ or specialization in the industries, thereby leading them to take courses considered as oversubscribed.

The study suggests the mapping of private HEIs’ and SUCs’ programs and curriculum should to eliminate duplication of programs as well as inefficient institutions and setting up more centers of development/ excellence instead of substandard ones.  Likewise, international linkages of higher education programs should also be established to make higher education at par with international standards.  This will not just upgrade the training and education sector, but will also help in the lobbying for the mutual recognition of qualifications across fields of discipline.

Education and training institutions must also try their best to explore the possibility of new programs in collaboration with the user sector (industries themselves); as well as to rationalize the student financial assistance programs in favor of priority courses.

Moreover, extensive advertisement and support (scholarship, etc.) to student lure them to take under-subscribed courses.  Low-performing programs should also be slowly phased out.  Avenues for alternative learning should be explored to help students in their studies.  Moreover, accreditation program should also be explored.  The training and education sector should also take advantage of the Expanded Tertiary Education Equivalency and Accreditation Program (ETEEAP).  In order to address the problem regarding the experience required by prospective employers, the education and training sector can consider the inclusion/ mainstreaming of experience in curriculum through longer on-the-job training.  Extending this to at least six months and making sure that the training is really related to the course can somehow answer this concern.  Moreover, they can also take advantage of the university-workplace, professional organizations linkages, higher education MIS.

In addition to this, the education and training institutions should not only concentrate on making their students competent in their field of studies, but also in harnessing  their communication skills which may prove useful especially at the early stage of job-seeking.

Making use of the career guidance programs in the secondary and tertiary level of education is equally recommended.  Likewise, the Labor department should also strengthen its career and guidance counseling services and be proactive in coordinating with the education and training institutions and industries to help provide the proper signals as to the `in-demand’ skills, courses, and/ or specialization in the industries.

With the growing employment registered in the informal sector, perhaps the entrepreneurial character should slowly be inculcated to the students by incorporating it in the students’ curriculum.  This, in the long run, will not only influence the thinking of the students towards white-collar and blue-collar jobs, but also empower/ prepare them to become self-employed in case the wage employment still cannot accommodate them in the future.