CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—Representatives from business sector, employers, stakeholders and government employment agencies threshed out their concerns to provide long term solution to job mismatch in the province,
The Department of Labor and Employment Regional Office (DOLE-3), Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA)and the Provincial Government of Pampanga under the Pineda administration has come up with a decision to organize the forum amid the unemployment and job mismatch problems worldwide.
According to POEA regional director Jocelyn Sanchez, job opportunities in and outside our country seem to be few because of the mismatch of the skills of the country’s manpower to the industry’s requirement.
“There are plenty of job vacancies but we don’t have enough skilled men fit for those jobs because that is not what our men studied and trained for,” added Sanchez.
The POEA regional director disclosed that their department will implement Project Job Fit where applicants can undergo skills training and development programs for them to be competent and fit for what the industries needed.
She said that the POEA, DOLE and the Capitol aim to get the commitment of the employers to post and define their requirements for the job vacancies so that applicants can match their skills.
Moreover the Technical and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) created the dual training system (DTS) that will provide the necessary training starting on tertiary level of education with the cooperation of the business industries.
TESDA Provincial Director Ben HurBaniqued emphasized the importance of the partnership between the schools and the industry in order to teach the students with the operations of a company so they will somehow get an advantage on landing on a job after graduation.
Baniqued also revealed the great demand of companies and industries on technical-vocational graduatesincreasing from55% to 61.8%
“One good indication of the acknowledgment on the skills of our tech-voc graduates is the opportunity set by Dubai giving 4000 job opportunities to women in our country,” he added.
On the other hand, aside from the skills mismatch on applicants, employers also pointed out in the forum that some applicants fail to comply on the requirements of a certain company due to lack of money for fare and acquiring medical certifications and clearances needed.
On this matter, 4th District Board Member RicYabut said “The Provincial Government will try to find a way to ease the burden of the applicants. With the help of the Municipal Employment Service Offices, we could probably set up a place where a person can go and do the necessary applications such as medical exams and police clearance.”
“Now, to cope with the demands of modern industries, we shall see to it that the Provincial Government will approve of acquiring new machineries that technical and auto-mechanical students can train with,” Yabut said.
As the forum ended, Pampanga Chamber Commerce and Industry president Jim Jimenez admitted that the problem on unemployment and job mismatch cannot be eradicated entirely.
However, according to Jimenez, through the collaborative efforts of the business and industry sector and government agencies, these problems will be addressed little by little and will be provided with a long term solution for the benefit of the people, especially the Kapampangans.
