Guidance counselors, career advocates get latest LMI and trends in Career Congress

By Jocelyn P Alvarez

ZAMBOANGA CITY - Job-skills mismatch still forms a serious and major part of unemployment rate in the country. When graduates wrestle for work after college, skills become their torch, their fighting chance to triumph over employers, putting into consideration our ever changing, and evolving labor and market requirements. Employers are now keener on the skills rather than the educational background of the applicants, which gives rise to the problem of jobs mismatch.

With this, the present administration through the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) have been in constant talk with education sector to update course curricula that will bring the skills closer, if not at par with the standards of labor industries.

Recently, DOLE 9 conducted the 2^nd Regional Career Advocacy Congress here to capacitate and equip career guidance advocacy allies with up-to-date Labor Market Information (LMI) and trends in the global and national context, for their use in effective and efficient delivery of career guidance to students and job seekers.

The two-day activity (conducted Sept. 29-30)also provided the participants (guidance counselors and career advocates) the opportunity to be updated with new concepts and strategies for career guidance in the 21^st century in order to assist people to find suitable learning and career opportunities.  Best practices of guidance counselors were also showcased during the event.

DOLE 9 Regional Director Sisinio B. Cano said the career congress hopes to help in “building back better Zamboanga” thru promoting career guidance as a relevant tool in youth development, contributing to the prosperity and welfare of the city

The challenge of addressing skills mismatch and creation of decent employment opportunities require policy and decision makers to adopt to the changing labor and market requirements, “that is why it is very timely that this administration pushes for the full implementation of theEnhanced Basic Education Curriculum (K to 12),” said Dominique R. Tutay, Director , Bureau of Local Employment .

“Importanteponamaisulongang K to 12 for  full implementation, dahilpopagdatingsaibangbansa, for instance, ng atingmga education and training output, lagipotayong may kakulangan, and therefore hindiposilanare-recognize as regular employee at kinakailangan pa po ng trainings so as to fulfill and match the requirements and demands of other countries,” Tutay said.

In DOLE parlance, jobs mismatch means when the job seekers do not match the skills requirement of the employers. It is a mismatch between the skills workers possess and what jobs require, what economists call an imbalance between the supply and demand for human capital.