Part Time Suweldo

May sweldo na! 

It's been a busy couple of months. Today we return to the daily grind with three bits of news: 

1. Metro Manila workers get a Php25 pay hike.  The Department of Labor secretary said that the hike will take effect "15 days after its publication in a newspaper of general circulation." The amount is ~3.48% of the Metro Manila minimum wage. That percentage is usually the same amount of annual increases we get in the Part Time Hourly Wage. I'm just not sure that we will get an additional increase as mandated by this bit of news. I guess we will see in two weeks time. 
2. May suweldo na today!* We will get our 4th paycheck of the term. I checked with the bank app and there is an amount credited to the payroll account. Suweldo now is ~the same amount I used to get pre-TRAIN. It seems like the deductions made for voluntarily signing up with the HMO, the whole amount of which used to be deducted within the first term, has been spread maybe through out the year? Maybe some people felt the burden of paying for healthcare in one term as too heavy and requested it to be parceled out more evenly.
3. Load for next term. I'm actually surprised that Part Timers will still be getting more or less a consisted full load for the coming term despite the prediction that the K-12 effect will result in lesser teaching load. Although not all schools are like this and I still don't want to count on this being consistent. Heard the news from Sir W that in CoRK, they're expecting only one subject load or maybe none at all. So this full load is still a blessing in the sky, I guess. 

*This is a message that's always greeted with a thumbs up or smileys in the Part Time Group Chat. You can feel the anxiety when people start to ask when payday is coming. But usually I get an alert that some money is coming in because it seems people are always on alert for this. 

Government trolls citizens: We got jobs, y'all. Why so choosy?

Do the math.

The government tries to explain the country's unemployment problem by basically telling its citizens to shut up and just take on any job.

DOLE Public Information Office Director Nikon Fameronag made public a study by its Bureau of Statistics that the Filipino jobseekers are "maselan" and "mapili sa trabaho," ie, too choosy and sensitive about the work they want to do. Fameronag identifies most of these applicants as new graduates, and even offers them advice: "Huwag maging maarte sa pagpili ng trabaho dahil ang mahalaga ay maranasan muna nila ang pagtratrabaho sa isang kumpanya." 

I wanted to excuse the report's fingerpointing, given that this report comes from the tabloid Remate, and not Fameronag's actual words. But I looked for other reports on the subject and found a report from the Philippine Star's PangMasa, this one just a little bit tame but still rather unfortunately worded. 

Both reports go on to say that the government does its share, by posting anywhere from 34,000 to 40,000 jobs on its PhilJobNet website. Surely, any one of those jobs can be taken on by any random Filipino jobseeker. What it all comes down to is that a representative of the government  blames the unemployment problem on what amounts to be the "bad attitude" of its labor pool. 

I looked at PhilJobNet's  top 5 vacancies: call center agent, service crew, cashier, sales clerk, production/factory worker. 

But if one checked out the "Top Skills" postings, the #1 job in offer is that of factory worker at 2,399 jobs on offer. Rounding up the Top 5: cashier (2132), service crew (2123), and sales clerk/sales lady in the high thousands. Call Center Agent only comes in at #12 at 386 jobs and Customer Service Assistant is at #15 with 352 jobs. 

An interesting aside: PhilJobNet only has two openings for shoemaker, and only single offerings each for "indexer"--whatever that is, valet, author, museum guide, telephone switchboard operator and aquaculturist. 

All of the Top 5 Jobs/Skills are at the opposite sides of the job spectrum. Call center jobs require at least a high school diploma or some college education, plus English language proficiency. Factory workers need material skills specific to whatever is produced by the factory doing the hiring. It also doesn't take into account the profile of who qualifies as unemployed, or as the article so gracelessly noted, the "tambays" in the statistical study. And what of the term "tambay" which has a widely negative connotation, ie "person who only finished grade school and may possibly be a delinquent and/or have never had a legitimate job ever." 

Meanwhile, "unemployed" covers a wide swath of people, who could be anyone from "New college graduate" which is different from "OFW transitioning to the local job market" and which is radically different from "only finished Grade 5." 

It does not take into consideration that every job posting requires a very specific skill set that may or may not apply to Jomar who only finished high school or Marilen who only had three semesters at the city college. And what of the aquaculturist? How many people studied that one in college? Or god forbid, acquired the skills and knowledge set for it by apprenticing? 

But inherent in this report that makes reading it infuriating is that the government is assigning the blame to the unemployment problem back to its constituents instead of creating more jobs. Why so choosy? Just take whatever job is there. Unless you want a country of robots, that's never a good idea. And even if you manage to convince millions of people to just give up on choice and the ability to create a good life for themselves, at some point all this will come back to haunt you. 

You want statistics? There are 40,000 jobs for a country with a population of 100 million. Assuming that only 40M are in the active labor pool, that's maybe a 1: 1,000 chance that your skills fit the job. Or let's make it more concrete: PhilJobNet through its website lists 123,928 applicants. There are only 97,610 vacancies. What are the chances any random Filipino job seeker has a shot at that? It still falls short of the target. 

So, why so choosy? Because this is a democracy, and by extension, a capitalist society, if you want to view it that way, where people are allowed to craft a life that is good for themselves. Unfortunately, the government we elected thinks so lowly of  its citizens and don't deserve a shot at a decent livelihood. It's basically trolling us: "Lolz, u fools! You'll take whatever crap we give you." It reeks of irresponsibility, of a government that washes its hands off its inability to supply the need of its people, and somehow symptomatic of a leader who technically does not need to work a day in his life. It almost makes you wish for a revolution to happen, if only to have a chance to rid the status quo of incompetents. 

Top 10 Highest Paying Jobs in the Philippines

The Department of Labor and Employment recently bared a list for the highest paying jobs in the country. It was based on the study made by the Bureau of Local Employment, and they defined the current Pinoy workforce as made up of "young, creative and dynamic people." 

I was not surprised that "geologist" made it to #2. There aren't that many geology majors in the country,  which makes their rarity and brand of expertise extremely prized. (I know or knew one geologist in real life.  He died. But when he was alive, his consultancy fees from mining and oil companies certainly were his bread and butter--not the teaching job he held at the university. Anyway, RIP Geologist. But don't worry, kids, his death had nothing to do with rocks. Science is cool; geology rocks!) 

But I certainly wasn't counting on "art director" to be on top of the list. So what does an art director do, exactly? The BLE has an answer: 

"[A]rt directors in the film industry typically work with production designers and serve as the head of the art department. He attends production meetings, oversees the film sets and special effects, supervises the production staff, and is responsible for allocating and maximizing the budget for the art department.

It added that depending on the qualifications and experience, art directors could earn a monthly salary of as much as P70,000, particularly those who work in big budget films."

Again, I've worked in that creative industry and production designers earn enough to buy a van and a house with nine rooms. But that is for someone who has worked for a long time, so this is not necessarily true for everyone. Perhaps the rates are different in commercials, but film and television, probably not as much. This somehow makes me consider the veracity of the BLE's study. 

If you would look at the list carefully, almost all the jobs require a very specific area of expertise which most likely requires higher education. The bare minimum would be a college course with a healthy dosage of science and math (geologist, pilot, mining/metallurgical engineer*, statistician, system analyst, computer programmer.**) 

DOLE Secretary Baldoz admits as much, that "the salaries and jobs identified are not entry-level wages. She says, “The compensation are obtained after years of work experience and after attaining some level of competency, as most employers in the identified industries would require. Also, occupants of these high-paying positions need to have bachelor’s degrees related to the field, at the very least." You can't just apply and say, I can do that. It needs real skills and a diploma. Imagine if your surgeon says he studied heart bypass operations in the internet. You wouldn't trust him with a cross-stitching needle, what more your heart. 

I might be wrong with this, but I think "General foreman" is a job you can learn from the ground up. You still need (construction?) skills and then build on that experience. 

Of all the top jobs, "call center agent" is the most free-wheeling. A decade ago, call centers (or BPOs) were just starting to get attention. They recruited college graduates who knew how to operate computers. But mostly, one must have a command of English. Accents are neutralized, and because Pinoys are great mimics, so that's a piece of cake. Also, you need a great deal of patience. You guide people through what needs to be solved, and there will be "irate callers" who will demand to talk to the manager and a hefty refund. 

It's a nice job to have if you don't mind the tedium and the hours--you have to follow Eastern or European time. It fills the bread basket and gives young people a job. But what happens when you no longer want to be a vampire on night shift? What other options are often? 

I might be the last person to champion a skills-only education, but now I can also recognize that not everyone needs to go to college. We put such a high premium on a college diploma that we lose sight of the fact that a country can't all be made up of desk slaves. But we've had enough of by-the-numbers people. We can't be all accountants.  Look where bureaucracy has brought us. If not everyone has the aptitude to study rocks, then we need to push technical vocational courses. 

And yes, we do need artists and poets and historians. But that's for telling the story later. If there's an apocalypse, what will happen to us? For that, we need people who know how to build bridges, operate heavy machinery, cultivate crops so we won't go hungry, save lives in case of emergencies. For that we need our scientists and skilled laborers. 

But we can't all be singing when the ships go down. Some of us would have to use labor and skill, some need math and sharp logic, some will have to write it all down. So really, a well-rounded education still wins the game for the country. 

*Entering college, I knew two people from my school who elected "metallurgical engineer" as their major and we were all, "What is the hell is that?" Later, the guy spent a lot of his time in a rig in the middle of the sea. 

**Some people would argue that all it needs is a decent computer and the internet and in the spirit of free knowledge sharing, one could learn to code and program on one's own. But in a country that has STI and AMA colleges on every corner, I would like to think that people go to school for that as well. Also note that most computer colleges boast of programs where they have E2E or enrolment to employment protocols, ie, they guarantee that you can get a job immediately afterwards. It won't be a well rounded education, but most people don't go to college now just "to learn." And that's sad.