Low pay seen in IT worker migration

DAVAO CITY—The shortage of workers for the information technology industry here has worsened with the migration to other countries of graduates of IT and IT-related courses, industry officials said.

Samuel Matunog, president of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Davao, said in Davao City alone, at least 5,000 IT and IT-related workers are needed.

The city produces less than a thousand IT graduates each year, which is insufficient to meet demand, he said.

Migration, he said, worsens the problem. While IT-related jobs are available in the country, many IT graduates prefer to work overseas.

The reason? Higher salaries, according to Matunog. In Singapore, he said, an IT worker gets an average salary equivalent to P80,000 a month while in this city, IT workers receive starting average salaries of P12,000 to P15,000. The highest salary that IT workers in the city could hope for is P30,000 a month, he said. Judy Quiros, Inquirer Mindanao