ISSUE 10, SEPT 2009 Manila, Philippines

The Future Skills Agenda: Report on the Post National Human Resource Conference
In 2006, DOLE convened the National Manpower Summit (NMS) to address the intractable problem of job-skills mismatch and its underlying roots. The strategy was to focus on key sectors with the greatest potential to create employmentthe key employment generators or KEGs. Largely drawn from the priority sectors for job creation under the 2004-2010 Medium Term Philippine Development Plan, these KEGs included cyber services, agribusiness, health, medical tourism, mining, hotels and restaurants, aviation, creative industries and overseas employment. The Summit was specifically intended to provide a platform for stakeholders, especially industry players, to map out skills requirements and indemand competencies in KEGs. It was also meant for stakeholders to identify skills and competency gaps against industry requirements and recommend policies and strategies that will narrow these gaps and ultimately generate the skills requirements of the KEGs, thus the theme Generating the Right Workers. While both NMS and NHRC took interest in addressing job-skills mismatch by looking into gaps in the quantity and quality of the workforce (supply), there were marked departures from NMS to NHRC. First, NHRC was guided by the specific interest in improving the countrys workforce productivity and consequently its competitiveness ranking, which in 2006 was unimpressive at 49th out of 71 countries. In addition, while NMS looked into the demand side of the jobs-skills equation, NHRC focused on assessing quality and quantity gaps in the supply side. Further, NHRC has a broader framework, aiming to address supply quality and quantity concerns not only through education and PolICy PRESCRIPTIoNS
Include an integrated productivity and competitiveness strategy in the DOLE strategic workforce framework to clarify the productivity perspectives and the productivity results or outcomes of the programs of the Department. The NWPC should be directed to formulate the productivity and competitiveness strategy of the Department. Program management entails reporting and monitoring of the status of the programs/projects/ activities enrolled in the regional and area-based action plans. The enrolled initiatives essentially pertain to the provision of pre-employment assistance, development of training modules, assessment and certification standards, and provision of skills training. Build the physical and technical capacities of DOLE to support an efficient labor market information system and to allow real-time skills and job matching at any given point in time. Develop IT expertise in managing labor market information systems and consider redesigning PhilJobnet for real-time skills and job matching. Sustain partnership with business and industry and strengthen existing tripartite mechanisms to continuously synchronize education and training with business requirements. In line with this aspiration, an inter-agency committee composed of TESDA, CHED, PRC, and DOLE should be constituted to monitor labor supply.

competitiveness. This challenge falls squarely on DOLE since competitiveness is shaped by an interplay of factors that include availability of quality human CoNCEPTUAl IdEAS resources (other factors are business efficiency, To compete in the global market, the Philippines must infrastructure support, energy, technology, access to take the high road to productivity and productive resources, good governance, private sector participation). This paper was written by the research specialists of the
Employment Research Division.
ISSUE 10 The Future Skills Agenda: Report on the Post National Human Resource Conference

The Conference was based on the premise that productivity could not be improved solely by increasing the supply of workers and enhancing their competencies, but also by ensuring that work conditions give rise to productivity. Therefore, the Conference framework combined three factors: (1) quality education and training, (2) good human relations and (3) harmonious labor relations.

government agencies (notably Department of Health and Communication and Information Technology Commission) and sectoral partners.

The NHRC, however, drew much wider participation because employers and labor organizations were also engaged to deal with concerns on human relations and labor relations. The scope of participation indeed turned out as expectedextensive (tripartite-plus) DOLE, along with conference partners, however, and collaborative, as illustrated in the diagram below. found itself struggling with some concerns on the framework (more on conference partners item Joining DOLE at the Conference, who also served as 2.122.15.3). Primarily, there was no ample time in co-organizers of the pre-Conference and Conference laying the informational groundwork for the concepts proper activities, were ECOP, PMAP, TUCP, put forward in the framework. There was initial FFW, NAPC and CHED. These organizations coconfusion, for example, on whether there could be shared resources with DOLE in the conduct of the mutually exclusive definitions for human relations activities. Other stakeholders comprised mostly of and labor relations. Patterned after a brainchild of other government agencies, labor organizations, the Secretary on labor education, human relations educational institutions and industry players, eventually referred to batas ng samahan while labor including professional and industry associations. They relations translated into batas ng bayan. Nevertheless, provided the broader base of participants in the pre batas ng samahan remained a porous concept that -Conference workshops and in the Conference itself covered everything that did not include batas ng bayan. (see proceedings of the Conference as documented In addition, the concept of human relations was in 2007 National Human Resource Conference: largely taken to mean as human resource development, Towards a Productive and Globally Competitive when its scope stretches over other concerns (e.g, Workforce). client relations, interpersonal relations). More crucial, however, was the challenge of introducing this new REgIoNAl ACTIoN PlANNINg framework to the stakeholders who had to grapple with the concepts as much as DOLE organizers and The regional consultations cum action planning its partners did. started mid-July and, for most of the regions, ended in September. A series of interregional workshops were On hindsight, the framework should have been convened after the regional consultations to allow mainstreamed first in the DOLE strategic framework. harmonization of the regional action plans into more The logical take-off point for the NHRC should targeted plans aligned with the goals of the Super have been an integrated DOLE productivity Regions, as identified in Executive Order No. 561 and competitiveness strategy that clarifies the (Series of 2006. The Super Regions were divided into productivity perspective/s within the broad strategic area-based groups for manageability of facilitation. DOLE workforce framework and the productivity results/outcome of the Departments programs. But considering the short time given to the organizers in convening the Conference (from February to April, 2007), the opportunity for mainstreaming proved remote. Table 1 shows the timeframe for the run-up to the Conference until the Conference proper and implementation, based on the terms of reference (TOR) approved by the Executive Committee. CoNSUlTATIvE MECHANISM The NHRC was meant to provide a platform of collaboration among stakeholders, including the government, in assessing the KEGs in terms of skills availability and quality and in crafting responses to skills and competency gaps. This is consistent with the framework of the NMS, which also involved other
ISSUE 10 The Future Skills Agenda: Report on the Post National Human Resource Conference

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