11 - ASEAN’s Most Unemployed Country

According to National Statistics Office and Department of Labor and Employment, There are 100,096,496 Filipinos; and as of late 2014, 7.3% of it is unemployed. Let me ask you a question, after graduating four years from now, will you be one of the 7.3% who considered themselves unemployed? I am Eugene Delfin and I am going to discuss to you the nature of unemployment in our country. According to asean.org, Association of East-Asian Nations is composed of Asian countries including the Philippines that aims to accelerate each other’s economic growth. Meanwhile Philippines has the highest unemployment rate among them.

According to investphilippines.com, the major causes of unemployment are the following: first, the oversupply of graduates in popular courses; second, poor quality of skills and lastly, discrimination. According to a survey done by the DEPED, every batch of graduating high school students, most of them would take nursing as their course. As a result, nursing is the most oversupplied job in our country. Quality of skills they possessed means that a specific industry is really a competition. Meaning, Companies choose candidates in a hierarchical manner where those who are the most qualified for the job are to be prioritize in hiring. Thus, According to Jobstreet.com, those people who can speak various international languages are more likely to be hired by the employer compared to those people who can even barely speak English as a medium of language. We hate to admit it but discrimination is observed in job hiring. The names of the schools you graduate, race and location, height requirements, age limit and gender are the examples of discrimination in hiring applicants. Now let’s discuss the effects of unemployment in the Philippines. According to job-interview-site.com, effects of such are the following: increase in crime and violence, loss of investment and lastly, increase in suicidal cases. Since unemployed people cannot find a job, they will need to find a source of income so they can survive. Thus, most unemployed people are involved in violence and criminal reports. Studying for about 16 years for a one page resume is really an investment. Parents of students invest a lot in their education: money, time and effort. Just imagine those things being taken for granted if you will be just unemployed after graduation. Hypothetically speaking, when you are not qualified for a specific job but you did all your best to have that, you will be very frustrated resulting in an attempt or worst, commit suicide. Accordingly, Philstar.com said that one of the main reason for suicides here in the Philippines is the depression due to disappointment, for people cannot find any job at all. The question is, what makes our country badly unique from other ASEAN countries? Analyzing from the data we got from globalnation.net, first is the corruption in the government and second, some people are just plainly lazy and contented about their life. Corruption. According to tradingeconomics.com, comparing our country from Malaysia, their budget for business which is the closest for employment rates is over 4.4 Billion Pesos or 375 Million Ringgits. While in our country, According to TESDA, we have 2 Billion Pesos for our vocational training education to enrich people’s skill for a higher chance of being hired. But analyze this Malaysia only has 3% unemployment rate due to that 4.4 Billion pesos, while in our country we only have half of 4.4 Billion Pesos and still got doubled the unemployment rate. Not all the time we can blame the government for what we are having. Personally speaking, sometimes it is really the people to be blamed. Let’s admit it, there are Filipinos who are lazy going to job fairs and searching in the newspaper or internet. There are also people who are contented of what they have right now, some are doing nothing, or worst doing crimes and violence to feed themselves. But that is the reality, it is not the fault of the government always.

Given those points, what sets off our country to other ASEAN country is just ourselves, the corruption that became part of our culture, and our mentality of being contented of what we have, that honestly we don’t really deserve.