Aquino: More jobs now available in the domestic market

(updated 4.57 p.m.) Filipinos are now finding more jobs in the domestic market and slowly letting go of their ambition to find employment abroad, President Benigno Aquino III said in his second State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Monday. Aquino cited during his second SONA the 0.8 percentage-point drop in the unemployment rate in April from a high of 8 percent in 2010. "Ngayon, may pagpipilian na siyang trabaho, at hangga't tinatapatan niya ng sipag at determinasyon ang kangyang pangangarap, tiyak na maabot ito," Aquino said. The President, however, was conscious that despite the gains in local employment, the government cannot afford to rest on its laurels. "Tandaan po natin: moving target ang nasa hanay ng ating unemployed, dahil taun-taon ay may mga bagong graduate na naghahanap ng trabaho," he stressed. This problem is compounded by the jobs mismatch that continues to hound local industries every year, Aquino said. Citing statistics from Philjobnet, Aquino said some 50,000 jobs remain unfilled every month because the skills of the graduates being produced each year do not match the requirements of the industries. To counter this, Aquino said he had called on the Department of Labor and Employment, the Commission on Higher Education, The Technical Skills and Development Authority and the Department of Education to address the skills mismatch. To counter this, Aquino said he had called on the Department of Labor and Employment, the Commission on Higher Education, The Technical Education and Skills Development Authority and the Department of Education to address the skills mismatch. "Susuriin [ng mga ahensya] ang mga curriculum para maituon sa mga industriyang naghahanap ng empleyado, at gagabayan ang mga estudyante sa pagpili ng mga kursong hitik sa bakanteng trabaho," Aquino said. One particular sector, the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry, had already taken such steps in filling up the high demand for local skills from abroad. In an earlier interview, CHED executive director Julito Vitriolo said the commission has encouraged schools to look into their respective curriculum and see how they can improve their students' communication skills. "English is recognized as the language of business. We are enhancing their communication and other skills toward a goal of achieving greater global competitiveness, especially in high-growth industries as the BPO sector," Vitriolo said. Employment situation But if independent research organization IBON Foundation is to be believed, the employment situation under Aquino has actually worsened. In a statement issued a day before Aquino's SONA, the group said it expects Aquino to cite the slight percentage-point reduction in unemployment. "The reported creation of 1.4 million jobs was offset by the 1.2-million growth in the labor force and the swelling number of under-employed [workers]," the group stressed. IBON claimed the "real jobs situation" has actually worsened despite what the numbers are saying, for there are still some 11.6 million unemployed and underemployed Filipinos. According to the Natjional Statistics Office, however, there were 2.9 million unemployed and 7.1 million underemployed Filipinos as of end-April 2011. Underemployed workers are those who express desire to have additional hours of work in their present job or to have an additional job or a new job with longer working hours. The National Statistics Office in June reported that the number of underemployed workers in April rose to 19.4 percent or 7.1 million, from 17.8 percent a year earlier. The group added that Aquino had merely "shallowly reduced the jobs problem to cumbersome bureaucratic processes" and maintained that the real problem is poor land distribution and lack of support for Filipino-owned corporations. — VS, GMA News