Metro Manila suffers shortage of qualified labor

MANILA– Amidst labor surplus, large enterprises in the country’s premier region experienced shortage of skills ranging from high-end positions such as accountants, engineers, and IT-based occupations to blue-collar jobs such as welders, drivers, and skilled laborers.

Citing a survey of the Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics (BLES), Labor Secretary Arturo D. Brion said that large firms in Metro Manila have encountered shortage of qualified applicants over the last three years.

This is not the first time that these results became evident as the March 2006 Jobs Summit and the 2007 National Human Resource Conference both pointed to the same results.

Brion said the Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics (BLES) survey identified the hot jobs in the talent shortage list in Metro Manila, adding that the survey revealed the kind of skills that industry requires not only in the prime region but nationwide.

Hot jobs are those that are highly in-demand and hard-to-fill due to lack or shortage in qualified applicants.

The labor secretary advised students and young workers to set their sights on acquiring the necessary skills and qualifications to fill the hot jobs immediately not only for their own benefit but also that of business and industry and the economy as a whole.

The BLES survey covered 448 large enterprises in Metro Manila. The samples were drawn from the list of the country’s top 5,000 enterprises. Data collection was conducted from January to March as a rider questionnaire to the 4th quarter 2006 labor turn over survey.

The survey indicated that nearly one in three enterprises experienced talent or skill shortage. About 136 or 30.3 per cent of the 448 respondents experienced shortage of qualified applicants in certain occupations in the last three years.

Majority of them were engaged in wholesale and retail trade (31.1 per cent) and manufacturing (28.2 per cent). The rest were spread out thinly across sectors.