Solar power farms, and content creators will drive employment in the next few years, making it extremely vital to address job skill mismatch among graduates, the Philippine Business for Education (PBEd) said.
At the PBEd Skills Partnership Summit, PBEd Executive Director Lovelaine Basillote said that the country needs to look more into pandemic, and climate resilient industries. Basillote said that from experience forming the YouthWorks program, PBEd found that “green industries” fit the bill.
“We’re also looking at cloud technologies because, whether there’s a pandemic or a calamity, as long as the infrastructure is there, we can actually work in the cloud. We’re also looking at social media content creation. We see a lot of opportunities there,” she said.
Set up in 2018, the YouthWorks program aims to uncover the potential of the young local workforce by investing in skill development. It has over 70 private sector partners, including McDonald’s, Amazon Web Services, and BDO Unibank.
Basillote said private companies put a premium on workers who can deliver on productivity goals while working with technology. However, there’s still a disconnect between business and education.
“There are many existing preconceptions, biases against senior high school graduates,” she said. “If the private sector is just exposed to them, to the senior high school graduates, they will really change their minds and we were able to prove that,” she added.
