On unemployment, what is really the cause?

ZD's Trivia
UNEMPLOYEMENT... Do you know d’ causes?
A section the late grand ole man of CHRONICLE journalism, ZOILO DEJARESCO JR,
February 16, 2014
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Several groups are wondering why this government has blamed the typhoons and earthquakes as the causes in the rise of the unemployment from 9.6million in September to 12.million in December last year. How much more today its already February.

Take the case of Dumaguete, we don’t have to go far. Why are there so many jobless despite the fact that we are a university town and are producing thousands of college graduates every year?. Its because our graduates do not have enough skills, nor experience to merit employment.

In short there is something wrong with our educational system. Students only learn mostly theories, but after school they know hardly anything significant about implementing those theories.

We have always advocated that while in college, there has to be more practicum subjects, immersion in the real world of industry and practice. Of course they do that in law schools, in medical and nursing schools. Why not practicum other subjects?

Second, unemployment because there is simply no vacancy in government, how much more in the private sector. If you don’t have political connections nobody will hire you in government. In the private sector, if you don’t have skills, nobody will hire you either.

But take a look at the booming business outsourcing industry like call centers, there the graduates flock because the pay is good, and its worth the first time experience in earning one’s first pay check.

In two years time they will get bored and will be replaced by another fresh batch of gradates. Still it did not solve the unemployment problem.

Third, if our lawmakers will just amend the constitution and allow selected foreign companies to open factories here, certainly employment will boom. How can you employ when nobody is opening opportunities. We are still a closed door society. Many are content with just hanging their diplomas on the wall and eat 3 square meals a day and remain jobless.

We salute the TESDA for generating thousands of employment opportunities because they train for skills. There are hundreds of transformers destroyed but only two are efficient rewinders here in Dumaguete and they charge sky high rates. That is just one example. Ordinary college graduates are not trained for special computer programs aside form word and excel. So how can they be hired?

And yet, thousands prefer to work as domestic helpers and work abroad even if they are college graduates.. We have ll million OFWs who should have been working here. In short, we lack at least ll million job opportunities here.

Finally, we produce thousands of graduates each year, but they don’t have the skills, no connections, and no initiatives. So they remain jobless, and worse part is, they don’t seem to mind because our paternalistic society allows the jobless to just stay at home and wait for kingdom come. So what has typhoons and earthquakes got to do with the overall unemployment? Honestly we don’t know.

The Negros Chronicle - Dumaguete News | Latest Updates from Dumaguete City and around Negros Oriental, Philippines

 

Now we know the cause of the problem but will anybody do anything about it, I doubt it, as our beloved President said, our most important resource is the " Human Resources" that we cheaply export all over the World, better they work abroad and earn $ than here at home measly Pesos, we need $ to pay our loans abroad...

 

Well certainly they will do something about it, they will stay home and wait for kingdom come!

 

World skills taught here?

"Finally, we produce thousands of graduates each year, but they don’t have the skills, no connections, and no initiatives. So they remain jobless, and worse part is, they don’t seem to mind because our paternalistic society allows the jobless to just stay at home and wait for kingdom come."

I was talking with a young lady three months from graduation in HRM in one of the local colleges. I asked here what she had learned that day in college. Her reply "I learned how to polish shoes." Granted there are not a lot of leather top shoes here to be polished but that was a skill I learned by the third grade at home. My reward was to be able to sit down because my butt was not sore from not learning. Maybe that is a international skill necessary to learn to advance in management. However kissing butt seems a better way to advance in the manage field than polishing shoes. O-| How does polishing shoes relate to hotel-restaurant- MANAGEMENT?
So maybe the college graduates in management here hold menial jobs because that is all they are trained for here are... menial tasks. I have been told that the Chinese are trained to be good managers, while the Filipinos are trained to be good employees. It seem like they are seldom trained to think of a better solution, but only to follow the rules, and work within confines of those rules...
The educational system does need to be reviewed... but denial is still so prevalent here that nothing is done.

 

VACANCY!! janitor needed ( No money though)

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My daughter yesterday, was still at school, till 6.30pm ( her groups turn) Cleaning the class room. Is it any wonder, our kids do not want, to help at home, They do their bit for free, at school, Grades, maths 87%, Science 82%, Classoom Cleaning 99%. Another budding, OSW Domestic Helper in the making. Now I have just been informed, she has a class today, this is to make up time lost, on other non, educational activities. hmmmmmmmmm


JP

 

Any news on the reconstruction in Leyte and Samar amongst other places?
Maybe some of the Financial help given by other Countries would employ people in the Construction Industry.
Skills could be learnt while helping to build homes and lives again.
I have not heard any news of these places in the aftermath since the Yolanda hit.

 

There are several reasons for the lack of employment opportunities. for instance the import/export duties on goods is so high that manufacturer's cannot ship the raw goods in and ship out the completed goods without paying a very high duty that other countries do not charge. That is why they chop cars into pieces in Japan and Korea and ship them in and they are put back together. The junk shipped in has a low import duty whereas a complete auto would be cost as much or more for the import duty as the value of the car.
Another impediment is the land ownership laws that foreigners cannot own land, but then again you can if you know and pay off the right people.
Corporate laws for Philippines are very restrictive. If a foreign corporation wants to open a branch they MUST put $200,000, not sure what the money is for or where it goes but that is the requirement. To form a Philippine Corporation must have 5 members, three of which must live in Philippines, it must be 60% Filipino owned. It takes about one year to set up a corporation in Philippines.
In my home state of Oklahoma, US. It costs $125 to set up a corporation and it takes less than two hours including getting it set up with a federal FEIN.
I'm sure there are problems with the educational system but that is not what is holding this country back, it is the protectionist laws that stand in the way.

 

There are 500,000 college grads nationwide every March. There aren't that many new jobs, regardless of the quality of education.

On the other hand try it can be impossible to persuade a Filipino to think beyond their current job level. They get to live with mom and dad-forever, and there just isn't the drive to achieve financial independence.

So there are few entrepreneurs-which you have to be - because of the lack of quality jobs.

"Chinese go to college to learn how to manage people, Filipinos go to college to learn how to be managed" (just something I heard once)


Maps of these islands can be deceiving. Lots of towns around the coastline-but most are very small. On Negros, the size of New Jersey, there's what...Bacolod, Dumaguete, Bayawan?, Kabankalan? Same for Cebu Island and the rest

Just not that many place to go with your diploma

 

Lose control of you investment here quickly

Good post... can you imagine a foreigner person or corporation starting a corporation/business here and then turning over 60% of the ownership to Filipinos. That means essentially your new investment is now out of your control. Your investment, is now in the hands of Filipinos, that cultural group that is know worldwide for corruption. Without foreign investment they will be little new legitimate jobs created here. To read of the political scandals here in the newspaper it would seem that most wealth is not accumulated by hard work and toil here, but other means.

I was once told that the reason that the sugar cane is not harvested by machine but by hand is to keep people employed. That is hard work and a sorry state for the economy when there are no good jobs available, except very low skill manual labor employment.

Little incentive for foreign investment, leads to little job creation which leads to higher unemployment in a country with a growing population base as the Catholic Church opposes birth control (a whole other issue).

Just fell off my soapbox O-| so it is time to leave for a while.