‘Skills mismatch still hounds jobseekers’

SKILLS mismatch of Cebuano job applicants to the available jobs has remained a problem for job seekers as proven in last Sunday’s job fair.

Exequiel Sarcauga, acting regional director of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE 7), said on Monday that there were 15,500 available jobs during last Sunday’s three job fairs.

But among the 5,706 job seekers who participated in these job fairs only 845 were hired on the spot while the others were referred to companies and just wait for their calls.

Sarcauga advised high school graduates to enroll in technical courses which are more in demand than nursing and other four-year courses.

However, some of the job applicants from the three job fairs in in Abellana National High School, SM Cebu and Cebu International Convention Center on Sunday were hired as call center agents and store personnel.

Last month, Dr. Joseph Sol Galleon, Cebu Normal University’s Presidential Assistant for Training, said graduates had to be proficient in the English language to get a chance to be hired by the business process outsourcing firms.

Galleon said that most BPOs find that most graduates were not proficient in the English language.

He said that 20 percent out of 100 applicants would only pass the hiring stage of most BPOs.

He said this is a sad reality and he was supporting the English Bill in Congress to be made into law because this could help make a difference in our graduates.

“It is not only because that I am an English major and a former head of the department of CNU because I find English as a springboard to employment. If only a person knows the English language well, they will be hired in any job,” said Galleon.

Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia last month also agreed with Galleon.

Garcia said she was also strongly pushing for the English bill to be passed into law.

She said the growing industry of BPOs in the province is a clear indicator that there is a need for good English speakers.

Cebu is considered to be the second largest IT center concentration in the country. In Cebu City alone, there are about 56,000 BPO workers.

BPO companies in Cebu projected that if this ongoing trend of the lack of English proficiency will continue, they worried that five years from now, there is a possibility that the title of the Philippines being the top BPO destination in the world may be returned to India./Correspondent Jhunnex Napallacan and Correspondent Carmel Loise Matus