MAKATI CITY, Philippines – The Philippines still lacks the necessary information and communications technology (ICT) skills to sustain growth in the local high-tech industry, a study that looked at several leading Asian offshoring markets showed.

The study conducted by market research and consulting firm XMG focused on China, India, Malaysia, and the Philippines during the first quarter of 2008.

The survey said the ICT labor pool in the country has remained at a 10-percent growth rate for the past five years. It is expected to grow by another three percent in the next two to three years.

It also pointed out that the current labor pool for local ICT skills is not enough to address the steady growth of the local ICT industry, which is pegged at 30 to 35 percent every year until 2010.

The study also said it is evident that fresh talents are still coming from Metro Manila, as it noted that about 22 percent of the estimated 50,000 to 60,000 graduates every year are from this region.

Sought for reaction, Oscar Sanez, chief executive officer of the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP), said the ICT labor pool could be larger if the definition of the labor pool is broadened to include college graduates for the past three years, "career shifters" from other industries, unemployed and underemployed skills, and returning professionals.

He also said the labor pool must also count graduates coming from outside Metro Manila.

"The talent pool in the Philippines is really big. The issue is not availability. The size is already big. The issue is if we are able to target qualified graduates. The challenge is really on how to increase yield so we can get qualified people. So we have to invest in a lot of effort to search for these people," Sanez said.

He said the Philippines also has a large population of unemployed IT professionals.

Sanez said that while the study is focused on the ICT graduates from local universities, the study should also consider graduates from business-related and engineering courses.

The business-related courses are producing 128,000 graduates a year, and the engineering courses around 42,000 a year. The country is churning out roughly 50,000 ICT graduates a year, he said.

All in all, the Philippines has about 450,000 college graduates a year. So a three-percent growth a year is a sizeable pool, he said.

The challenge is making sure these graduates are ready to fill the quality needs of the industry.

"Our efforts at BPAP are not about raising the numbers but raising the quality," he added.

The XMG study gave an overview of the availability of IT manpower based on skills.

XMG said the study looked at the labor supply based on educational level, from those finishing a four-year bachelor's degree to those taking IT vocational courses. It also zeroed in on ICT skills, such as programming, business solutions, and networking.

The XMG study found a shortage in programming skills in Python, VBScript, Perl, XML and VB.NET in the country.

The study also found that IT skills specific to business software from SAS, SAP, Lotus Notes, and MySQL are scant. It also noted a shortage in networking skills.

"With the increasing demand for IT professionals today, companies should be aware of the situation and align their strategies to mitigate risk coming from the labor market," said XMG chief analyst Lauro Vives.

Sanez, however, had this to say: "We cannot just rely on college graduates. We have career shifters, and returning IT professionals from other countries who can add to the labor pool."