Local jobs to be found in services, agribusiness, mining

MANILA, Philippines - The services sector, which includes supermarkets, banks, hotels and restaurants and logistics, will be the main creators of jobs between the years 2012 and 2020.

This was one of the highlights of an extensive study made by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) on the labor market in the Philippines until the end of this decade.

The study, called Project Jobfits 2020, was completed recently and is available in book form.

The study that included not just field researches but also consultations with industry leaders, labor market experts and members of the academe was meant to guide government, private enterprise and young Filipinos decide on their course of actions in the next eight years.

The DOLE did not find a major shift in the list of key employment generators or KEGs that contributed to the creation of jobs in the past decade. It identified 12 traditional job creators dominated by cyberservices, health and wellness, tourism, banking and finance, transportation and logistics and wholesale and retail trade – all in the services sector.

Agribusiness was likewise identified as one of the big job makers in the near and medium-term future prospects for job seekers. A total of 14 of all 16 regions in the country expect their agribusiness sectors to be the main job generator between this year and the close of the decade.

Foreign jobs, on the other hand, will remain one of the top options for Filipino job seekers as a growing number of professionals and highly skilled workers in the developed world are expected to retire and require replacements during the same period.

The mining industry was also expected to contribute a larger share of employment in the next several years, at least in eight regions where mining explorations are now going on.

Overall, the prospects for gainful employment was seen as best to professionals and those with highly specialized skills in those identified key employment generators.

Those with few skills were seen out of the loop of the new demand for workers in this decade. Only the retail trade, mining and agribusiness segments of the productive economy may demand semi-skilled and unskilled labor.