According to Kearny, a global management consultancy, thousands of jobs currently held by Filipinos are at risk of becoming obsolete in the near future.
Marco de la Rosa, head of Philippines country at Kearney, said a recent survey of the most attractive jobs reveals that about 50,000 to 100,000 jobs will be lost in the next three to four years. said.
Many will enter the retail, back-office, finance and telecommunications industries, he said.
“The key here is how do we reach the next level of skill to add incremental value,” he told reporters at a press conference in Taguig city on Tuesday. .
But at the same time, he reiterated, “A similar number of new jobs will be created in the future.” These include designers, sustainability professionals, and anyone involved in artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning (ML).
“Apart from the new roles, there is also an evolution of the current roles we have,” he added, referring to the various existing professions that will continue to exist, such as the growing business process outsourcing industry. Mentioned. “But it will be something completely different and it will require certain skills.”
While there are hopes that the 100,000 jobs at risk of disappearing soon may be replaced by an equal number of new roles, “it won’t be all that smooth,” de la Rosa warned. bottom.
“There will be some friction, and similar things are happening in other markets. No,” said the official.
As a rollback, he said the country needs to “fix the leaky bucket” on this kind of glamorous job.
Their research on the most sought-after jobs, especially in the digital sector, shows that wages in the Philippines are about one-tenth of developed countries and about one-third of neighboring countries such as Vietnam and Malaysia.
“So, if you can imagine, if there are highly skilled people here with the right skills, where are they going? You are going out of the Philippines. We have talent here to keep, we need to keep people coming back here,” he said, citing a salary increase as a first step.
Dela Rosa added that companies should invest in reskilling the labor sector. When it comes to education, he suggested that building “a world for the future” by developing students’ digital skills is imperative. Young people of elementary school age, that’s what really matters in the digital world of cognitive AI.
In addition, critical thinking, complex problem-solving, intellectual curiosity, basic reading comprehension and customer-centricity will also remain important skills in the years to come, he noted. “how [we are embedding] It will be important to continue to develop them as part of the curriculum for children or to engage in the development of those already in the workforce,” he said.
Equally important to him is the government’s role in building an ecosystem to make such proposals a reality.
“These things cost money, so how do we really encourage and incentivize companies to do this because it is the right thing to do and it is best for the country,” he stressed.
Image credits: Bernard Testa
