Financial Crisis (Recession) or Greed

Some Informative Facts:

Financial Crisis (Recession) or Greed

The news I read from the internet reported that unemployment rate in January of 2009 rose by 0.3 percentage point to 7.7 percent in January. Translating these figures into layman’s terms, it means that for the month of January alone, there were 2.8 million unemployed Filipinos. NSO data showed that of 37.1 million Filipinos who applied for a job, only 34.3 million got the jobs.

The country’s jobless rates climbed and this would rise further owing to the fact that there are about 275,000 people who lost their jobs since October last year. This figure is expected to rise with the addition of numbers of fresh graduates this March. Analysts said it would rise further as the country feels the impact of financial crisis.

Job Mismatch is Caused by Obsolete School Curriculum

While there may be plenty of jobs available in the Philippines, job placement agencies claim that job seeker’s skills didn’t matched the required skills for the jobs. This is mainly because the curriculum that the students were getting from formal schoolings doesn’t match with the demand of the jobs that these future graduates will pursue in the future. Take for example the subjects being taught (still) in the colleges and universities. There are still History subjects, Rizal’s Work, Spanish, Panitikan, etc. Well, I’m not saying that they should not be taught to every Filipino student but these subjects should have “proper” place in the school curriculum. Introducing these subjects in the primary and secondary levels are enough but not anymore in college. Instead, CHED should initiate a thorough review of tertiary level curriculum and focus more on subjects which are requisite of specific course and put additional units in on-the-job training or internship. Perhaps, engineering courses instead of the usual 5-year program can be shortened to 4-year courses without sacrificing the knowledge and skills to be learned.

However, there are those who can meet or even excel the skills and experience required by the job but were not accepted anyway because of age factor. While others, gifted with talent (and the age factor on their side) opted to work abroad in exchange of hefty salary. As a result, the Philippines continuously lose its battle on brain-drain while the problem of job mismatch is also increasing exponentially.

Greed or Financial Crisis

The rising unemployment rate has always been the problem of the Philippines even before the financial global crisis. While it is true that economic crunch contributes to the rising numbers of unemployed and underemployed. However it is the unabated corruption in most government dealings and its agencies that are causing this social problem (unemployment) since the early beginning.

Low income earners and middle class Filipinos who had insured education of their children into various pre need companies, hoping that one day, they could provide better education for their children end up victims of these greedy businessmen who made used of their “intelligence” to dupe unsuspecting or gullible investors. Worse, the government agency, mandated to protect the interest of the general public ends up with some of its official, either conniving or taking part of the share in the “loot bag.” As a result; no formal or proper education means unemployment.

At the end of the day, one need not be a financial wizard or a degree in economics from A.I.M. to understand the cause of Filipino sufferings but a careful analysis and right decision of who you will put to the position to run our country this coming 2010 election.
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There are plenty of job out there BUT it's not because it is not suitable for what you have studied but the competition for that position is high, most companies prefer newly grad cause they can give the basic salary while others prefer people with experience cause of their knowledge & capability(compare to new grads).