No jobs available for 448T graduating college students

The militant labor center Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) today expressed fears that this year’s 448T college graduates will add up to the growing unemployment and underemployment data because of the Arroyo government and Department of Labor and Employment’s (DOLE) failure to provide secure jobs for Filipino workers.

“Rather than finding ways to effectively provide jobs for Filipinos, DoLE Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas spends her time issuing Assumption of Jurisdiction Orders (AJ) and repressing legitimate workers’ actions demanding better wages and working conditions,” said KMU Spokesperson Presto Suyat.

The Commission on Higher Education (ChED) announced that 447,847 college students will graduate this year, slightly higher from last year’s total of 431,689 graduates.

According to the Commission, “the bulk of graduating students will come from those who are taking up business administration and entrepreneurship-related courses with 126,631 graduating students, followed by seniors who are enrolled in education and teacher-training courses, placed at 90,259 graduates.”

Almost 55,000 are graduates of engineering and technology; 41,403 from information technology; 30,919 from medical and allied courses; 15,416 from social and behavioral science; 14,873 from agricultural, forestry, fisheries and veterinary; and 14,175 from maritime courses.

“Most of these graduates will be forced to look for employment abroad or end up working in business process outsourcing (BPO) related jobs which are the most common available employment in the country these days,” Suyat stressed.

Suyat said that domestic employment figures continue to drop with the deepening political and economic crisis brought about the Arroyo government.

Independent think-tank IBON foundation said that employment statistics from the recently released January 2006 Labor Force Survey (LFS) belies government’s claim of an improving economy.

According to the latest LFS, around 2.8 million Filipinos failed to find work in January 2006, higher by 15% from 2.5 million in the same period last year. The decrease in jobs came from the industry sector, which shed some 95,000 jobs mostly from the manufacturing and construction subsectors.