TUCP: 'Job-skill mismatch' faces 2016 graduates

College graduates this year may find it difficult to land jobs because their skills may not match the employers' requirements, a labor group said Sunday.

“This job-skills mismatch crisis in the country has been on going and it continues to grow. Competition is getting higher so employers are putting additional qualifications into the job descriptions for them to compete. Heightened competitiveness at the job market without or little adjustment at the learning institutions is what makes this crisis thrive,” Trade Union congress of the Philippines spokesperson Alan Tanjusay said in a statement.

The TUCP cited data from the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) that shows only 391,088 out of the 1,286.073 applicants were hired on the spot in 3,686 job fairs held in 2014 and 2015.

Data from the Commission on Higher Education, meanwhile, showed that there were 656,284 college graduates in March 2015 and nearly 1.6 million individuals finished their training courses from the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority.

“With employers adding more qualifications, graduates’ credentials will be scrutinized longer,” Tajunsay said, “This additional layer in the procedure could mean additional training which entails further cost and perseverance for the applicant.”

Tajunsay said the increased standards being implemented by employers will eventually lead to graduates facing underemployment or worse, unemployment.

The DOLE has identified 102 occupations that are "hard-to-fill" or job vacancies which employers are having difficulty to fill because applicants do not meet the skills' requirements.

Hard-to-fill jobs include 2D digital animator, agricultural designer, bioinformatics analyst, cosmetic dentist and surgeon, cuisine chef, multi-lingual tour guide, and mechatronics engineer among others.

The department has also listed 275 jobs in-demand. These jobs, according to DOLE, have high turnover and replacement rate.

Such occupations include abaca pulp processor, bangus driver, bamboo materials craftsman, fish cage caretaker, mussel grower and reefman. —Kiersnerr Gerwin Tacadena/ALG, GMA News