By Grace Abella Zata

If you were being wheeled into the operating room, would you not want the assurance that your medical team included experienced O.R. nurses and surgical assistants? Viewers of medical Korean drama must have realized the critical importance of talent management in healthcare.  

Countries with nursing shortages have been offering Filipino nurses salaries that local hospitals would find hard to match, as well as attractive residency and family arrangements. 

This example underlines why strategic planning and management of Filipino talent is increasingly becoming vital to our national security and development.

With current and anticipated labor shortages in many countries, it has become even more appropriate to call human resources “talents” as the term implies scarcity. Our fertility rate — the highest in Southeast Asia and midrange in the world — and our being a global hub for talent present both tremendous opportunities and dangerous risks that we need to manage well.

Increasing overseas demand, digitalization and business transformation are driving the talent war for  nurses, CPA’s, accounting and finance and IT specialists, administrative assistants, construction workers, drivers, and so forth. New services — such as virtual assistants, audit and finance consulting — and direct hiring by overseas companies are increasing demand for Filipino professionals.

Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) predicts that Japan will face a shortage of up to 790,000 IT personnel in 2030. Outsourcing is becoming not just a matter of cost advantage, but of talent availability. Already, a global BPO has been transferring IT work from Japan to the Philippines. The cost of some IT talents is spiraling that some Philippine companies are thinking of outsourcing work to other Southeast Asian countries. 
Recruiters from other countries are building their human resource pipeline by offering scholarships and partnering with our schools and universities to train people for company-specific skills in their countries.

We have for a long time lacked talents in key industries like agribusiness, where we have needed to hire South American executives for key leadership and scientist roles.  

All these mean that Filipino companies are increasingly having to compete with multinational firm’s global salaries. Many local companies and hospitals are already adjusting their salary structures to meet these realities.

Our government leaders are very careful in their public pronouncements: “Overseas work should be a matter of choice.”  We should however embrace the fact that the Philippines will continue to be a global hub for talent and  leverage on our  higher birth rates by preparing our people for higher value jobs.
As there are tremendous opportunities, there are also dangerous risks for a country with a significant dependence on OFW remittances and the outsourcing and offshoring sector. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is expected to eliminate transactional tasks, possibly even in the maritime sectors, which currently employs almost half a million Filipinos. 

From perspectives gathered in various conferences and meetings of the Government Academe Industry Network (GAIN), including the July 2023 conference organized with the Philippine Japan Economic Committee (Philjec) and Japan’s METI, the following imperatives have emerged:
1.    Address the crisis in basic education. We scored near bottom in the Program for International Student Assessment, which measures 15-year-olds’ ability to use reading, math and science knowledge and skills. Build  a strong foundation in STEM, analytical and critical thinking to continuously build our pipeline of healthcare, engineering, IT, digital, AI, maritime, advanced manufacturing, AgriScience talents to address local and global demand.  We  cannot throw money at the problem. Vietnam’s success has demonstrated the critical factors:  the government’s political will to drive learner outcomes and teachers’ competence and motivation. With a good basic education, even graduates of K-12 can quickly learn evolving technologies. 

2.    Regain our competitive advantage in English. GAIN has been promoting the adoption of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) for language which has served as the catalyst for the launch of the National Roadmap for Global Competitiveness in Communication Skills by CHED.  GAIN has also launched English for Filipino speakers on the Duolingo Language App.  Japanese and other languages should be offered as elective courses in more colleges and universities, the way such is done in Indonesia and Vietnam.

3.     Partner with countries where win-win arrangements provide maximum value. Japan’s Technical Internship Training Program (TTIP) hires unskilled or semi-skilled foreign workers and paid  salaries for entry-level workers in Japan. After acquiring the skills, trainees can progress to higher paying jobs, either in Japan or in other countries like New Zealand. This is a perfect partnership for the Philippines which has an oversupply of unskilled labor. 
4.     Improve labor market signaling. How many Filipinos know that Japan has the TTIP or that Dualtech provides on- the -job training in basic electromechanical skills?

5.    Adjust teaching methods to encourage critical thinking. This is essential to enhancing assertiveness and related competencies  particularly important for global leadership positions.

(Grace Abella Zata is vice president for Industry of GAIN and is Chair of the CESI group of companies, a pioneer in the executive search and recruitment business. She is also a former president of the People Management Association of the Philippines (PMAP).)