Sen. Benigno “Bam” Aquino IV
MANILA, Philippines – To help address the problem of job mismatch in the country,
Senator Bam Aquino on Wednesday called on private companies to “relax” their educational requirement in hiring employees even without a college degree.
“I’m aware that companies have certain educational standards regarding their employees but they also have the responsibility to help the country and one way of doing it is to at least relax their requirements,” Aquino said in a statement.
Asked over the phone what he meant by his proposal, the senator explained that applicants who have no college degree but possessed the necessary skills should also be considered by the companies.
“If the applicants have the necessary skills, the companies should not require a degree anymore,” he said.
Aquino, chairman of the Senate committee on trade, commerce and entrepreneurship,
then cited as example those people being hired in business process outsourcing (BPO), some of them were not even high school graduates.
Job mismatch, he said, happens when an applicant could not comply with the demands of educational requirements for a position.
“This problem contributes to our growing unemployment rate, which, as of last count increased from 7.1 percent to 7.5 percent in the first quarter of 2014,” the senator said in the statement, citing a report from the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).
DOLE reported that there are 3.8 million job vacancies waiting to be filled, especially in industries such as services, construction, tourism, and information, technology and communications, and BPO.
“However, many of these vacancies remain as such because of the job and skills mismatch,” he pointed out.
Aside from the cooperation of private companies, Aquino said the government should take steps to address job mismatch, which stemmed from lack of proper education and training of applicants for a particular line of work.
Aquino then called on the DOLE, Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda), Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and the Department of Education (DepEd) to join forces in combating the prevalent job mismatch problem.
“These four government agencies should launch a massive awareness drive in high schools to inform students on what the right course to take in college,” the senator added.
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