MANILA — UniTeam presidential bet Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos and his running-mate Inday Sara Duterte said they would pursue policy reforms in the Philippine labor market to address the education-job mismatches when they win in the upcoming 2022 national elections.
A perennial problem even for advanced economies, education-job mismatch happens when an employed individual’s level of education is different from the level of education appropriate for a job.
The situation often results in low job satisfaction among workers, which leads them to quit their work and become unemployed.
The situation is so prevalent that it has become a common occurrence for college graduates to land low-paying jobs unrelated to their degrees.
A recent study published by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) highlighted the scale of education-job mismatches in the country when it showed that 39% of employed Pinoys are ‘overeducated while a quarter of them are “undereducated.”
Marcos and Inday Sara said they recognize the urgent need to address the problem since it puts Pinoy workers at a disadvantage and negatively impacts our country’s global competitiveness.
“The issue of education-job mismatches in our labor markets is a real cause for concern since workers continue to suffer a wage penalty. It is unfair because we see in the PIDS study that ‘overeducated’ workers only earn 5% more for the extra years of schooling. These are serious inefficiencies that need to be addressed,” the UniTeam said.
The PIDS report used data from 2006 and 2012 and noted that the extra years of schooling only gave a 5% return compared to the 7%-19% for every required year of education.
“Creating job opportunities has always been top of mind for the UniTeam, especially now that we are emerging from a pandemic. We plan to step up the number of government-funded job fairs to bridge the gap between job seekers and employers. We will ensure that quality jobs await those who will attend these events,” the UniTeam added.
According to the Labor Force Survey released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), unemployment improved to 7.8% compared to 10.4% in 2020 but has not fully recovered to pre-pandemic levels.
It is equivalent to 3.7 million unemployed Pinoys and is still lower than the 4.5 million in 2020.
“We also need to institute a system that will allow us to accurately determine current and future skill demand and supply. This highlights the importance of working closely with the stakeholders in this sector to come up with initiatives that would allow for better matching,” the UniTeam added.
Although the PSA data also showed that the underemployment rate slightly improved to 15.9% in 2021 from 16.4% in 2020, it is still higher than the 13.8% logged in 2019.
It means that around 7 million employed Pinoys in 2021 are still looking for work or longer working hours.
The UniTeam bets also called for a review of current career guidance programs and a science-based, data-driven approach in seeking a solution.
“We also need to review our career-guidance programs for our students to check what areas need to be reinforced or adjusted to address these mismatches. In our view, research will also play a vital role in this endeavor, and we need to have a science-based and data-driven approach to solve this problem,” the UniTeam said. (ai/mtvn)
UniTeam to address education-job mismatch among Pinoy workers
