The Philippines is suffering a crippling brain drain with many of its most talented and qualified workers heading overseas for higher-paid jobs and better lifestyles, employers say.

The shock resignations last week of 25 Philippine Airlines pilots, who left for bigger salaries abroad, highlighted a trend that is changing the stereotype of overseas Filipinos being simply maids, sailors and laborers.

Scientists, engineers, doctors, IT specialists, accountants and even teachers are among the English-speaking talent heading to foreign lands, leaving the government and private companies scrambling to find replacements.

“There is a skills haemorrhage. We are losing workers in the highly professional and skilled categories,” Vicente Leogardo, director-general of the Employers’ Confederation of the Philippines, told Agence France-Presse.

The pilots who quit for jobs in the Middle East and elsewhere in Asia would have in some cases nearly tripled their salaries, Airline Pilots Association of the Philippines president Elmer Pena told AFP.

“The salary here is a lot smaller than in other countries. You can’t really compare it,” he said.

Civil engineer Paris Chuchana joined the exodus two years ago when he moved his family to Singapore so he could take a job earning about US$1,600 a month, five times more than the maximum salary he could expect at home.

Like many expatriates, Chuchana enjoys the lifestyle outside his homeland, which suffers from pervasive corruption, poor infrastructure and frequent natural disasters.

“I was just on vacation, visiting my aunt here, but I found I liked it, so I resigned from my job in the Philippines and came over,” Chuchana told AFP by telephone from Singapore, adding he had no intention of returning home soon.

“My first kid is entering high school so I am already preparing for college.”

The nine million Filipinos who work overseas—about one tenth of the nation’s population—in both high and low-skilled sectors undoubtedly play a crucial role in propping up the nation’s spluttering economy.

Last year they sent home $17.3 billion to relatives or for investment, making up more than 10 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product, according to government data.

But Philippine Airlines’ recent woes have highlighted the costs.

The carrier said its hopes for turning a profit this financial year had sky-dived because the pilot walk-out had forced some flights to be cancelled.

Other organizations recently reported similar brain-drain pain.

The government weather station was heavily criticized last month after it failed to predict the full force of Typhoon Basyang (international codename: Conson) that killed dozens of people.

In its appeal for understanding, it said it did not have enough qualified meteorologists because 24 staff had gone abroad for better-paying jobs in recent years.

And just this week, the environment department announced it had lost 83 geologists to overseas work over the past three years, hampering government programs for mapping earthquake threats and mineral resources.

A Department of Labor study in 2008 found that despite a huge domestic workforce, many positions for skilled workers were going unfilled because there were not enough qualified applicants.

Amid this shortfall, 22 percent of the roughly 330,000 Filipinos who went abroad to work last year were technical, managerial or clerical workers, according to official data.

The government has been seeking ways to upgrade salaries and benefits, according to Myrna Asuncion, assistant director of the government’s economic planning department.

“But local salaries can only go up by so much before they start hurting the competitiveness of local industries,” Asuncion told AFP.

“We want to provide employment opportunities in the Philippines but there are some sectors that say salaries are already too high,” she said.

With no solution in sight, business groups hold little hope of keeping the nation’s top talent at home.

“You cannot stop these people from seeking greener pastures,” said Jesus Varela, a committee chairman with the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Midwife Chae Reviso returned to the Philippines after eight years working tax and rent-free in Saudi Arabia because she wanted to live again with her husband.

But barely a year later, the 39-year-old is preparing to leave again because her homeland offered her too few opportunities.

“I felt I owed my husband some time but I cannot afford to build a house on my salary in the Philippines,” Reviso said. (Agence France-Presse)

By Pepper Marcelo

The Philippine Overseas Employment sector is at a crossroads. For decades, the country has relied on remittances to fuel the local economy and its domestic consumption. Now it faces rough sailing as labor demand from overseas slows down as a result of the global financial crisis.

No other country has had as much an over-reliance on remittances as the Philippines. Compared to other top recipient countries such as India, China and Mexico, the high percentage of remittances to the national income, or GDP, is highly disproportionate.

For example, the ratio of remittances (in billions of dollars) to the GDP of India is 27-to-3, China 27.5-to-1, and Mexico 25-to-2.8. The Philippines, on the other hand, is 17-to-13.8.

The country’s economic survival is dependent on sustaining these OFW remittances. With the current global financial crisis effecting migrant workers, however, the OFW sector faces an accelerating number of complex challenges going into the new decade and beyond.

Europe, North America and Asia are in a recession of unknown duration and depth. Job orders from Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, previously considered the best countries for expatriates, have stopped.

Only Middle East countries of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, and Libya are hiring workers, using government and sovereign funds that sustain much of their current infrastructure projects and OFW manpower demand.

“To them, the Middle East is a difficult place. There’s no freedom there,” says Loreto Soriano, executive director of the Federated Association of Manpower Exporters (FAME). “The point I want to clarify, is that in those first world countries that the Filipino would normally want to go, they are the first to be affected by the crisis. You have to be practical. If you’re looking for a job and want to earn, that’s the place.”

Soriano is an Overseas Contract Worker (OCW) himself, having experienced personal economic benefits (as well as family sacrifice) while stationed in Saudi Arabia in the 80’s. Over the last two decades he has become involved in the migration of workers, and has been advocating the design of OFW components that would be beneficial to OFWs and the nation.

Dutch disease

To him, remittances are causing a “Dutch Disease.” “It is a phenomena in which you are awash with wealth but spend it unwisely.”

The concept is based on the impact of the high remittance growth rate in many sectors of the economy, including appreciating the peso, increasing foreign imports and discouraging domestic production, increasing government debt, encouraging smuggling and allowing for the growth of corruption.

“For example, before, to sustain the wealth of your family, you had a farm, a piggery or small poultry. This is the source of income that provided education to your kids. If you have a daughter in Japan or Saudi earning overseas and sending home money, you don’t need to sustain that farm.”

On a larger scale, “Dutch Disease” is the detrimental outcome of a country’s foreign exchange income without the government’s cost of development and investment.

Erroneous data

The financial sector and government agencies have propagated the falsehood that the last few years’ remittance record increases have been driven by a large increasing group of OFWs working in “recession-proof” occupations.

In fact, professional deployments have declined by 45% from 2005-2007, and less than 5% of all OFWs should be considered working in recession-proof positions, such as healthcare, 70% of whom are employed in Saudi Arabia.

There is a fundamental flaw to the collection and processing of OFW deployment and hiring data. Deployment statistics reflect multiple counting, while job classifications are too few, outmoded, and not sufficiently detailed. Financially, authorities have been aware of OFW statistical inconsistencies and deficiencies for years. Most statistical claims are believed but “upwardly biased.”

Many officials say there is record growth, but it is attributable to change in mode of transfer rather than increased deployments of professionals with increased salaries.

These statistics reflect different channels of delivery – from banking to non-banking, or non-informal channels such as couriers, hand carry and padala transfer methods.

“If there is growth, why can’t poor people feel it? Because it is a jobless growth. From a productive economy, it has changed into a consumptive economy. Because of the inflow of dollars, and industries are dying, there is so much consuming by the families of OFWs. And if there in nothing to buy locally, we import everything we need.”

And contrary to popular belief that OFWS are employed in recession-proof industries and a high percentage of them are professionals, they are not. Though it is stated that 90% of the OFW workforce is composed of professionals, the number is closer to 13%, and that is steadily declining.

The fact is that OFW deployment is dominated by low-skilled workers, encompassing household, service, factory and labor. The deployment of professionals – nurses, doctors, etc. – remains low compared with other skills categories. In the supposedly “recession-proof” healthcare industry, only approximately 3% of nurses were new hires in 2007, down 36% from their peak of 9,000 in 2001.

It is also believed that hundreds of thousands of nurses are deployed each year, when in reality, it is less than 10,000. And that many of them go to the U.S., but actually only 186 went in 2007.

Unemployable graduates

“That kind of dialogue – that tens of thousands of nurses are deployed since 2003 – invited half a million enrollees in nursing for the past six years,” Soriano says. “That’s why you have computer schools like AMA and STI and Mapua Institute of Technology (MIT), companies that are dedicated to IT and engineering, opening nursing courses.”

The Philippines is producing unemployable candidates and qualified graduates for most job orders, yet nationwide specialty “schools” and programs keep proliferating, ignoring the job market reality.

For many years, the Overseas Employment Service Providers (OESP) has voiced their concerns on the incompatibility of college, technical and vocation courses with international standards.

Unfilled job vacancies, approximately 500,000 according to the POEA, were not filled due to the lack of experienced, qualified professionals and skilled workers. There are 389,000 job orders, but only 25% can be filled in the next 6 months.

Increased competition and lack of experienced, qualified applicants will continue to increase and accelerate. There is also a lack of permanent jobs for gainful experience, with manufacturing industries that offer permanent jobs quickly dwindling.

“Can we change that? No, unless there are structural changes.” One of his solutions is that returned and “retired” OFWs should be treated as productive assets and become part of a new economic model that utilizes their experience, knowledge and available investment funds by working under sustainable domestic programs. This includes agriculture and community-based commerce.

Failure to act now, Soriano says, to protect and sustain the OFW economic engine will cause great political and social uncertainty in the country and affect the capacity to be a regional player in the future.

“Our economists and government policy makers should realize this. The effect of their failure to protect the local economy is now affecting the overseas employee.”

By Pepper Marcelo

It used to be that the Philippines’ biggest competitive advantage in the global job market is the proficiency of our skilled workers in the English language. This advantage, however, is fast being eroded by rising competition from other countries coupled with declining mastery of the English language by our college graduates.

Recent language test results released by the IDP Education Pty. Ltd. Philippines, an accredited group that administers the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) to Filipinos seeking to work and migrate abroad, showed that the Philippines is no longer the top English-speaking country in Asia.

With an overall score of 6.71, Malaysia is now the No. 1 in English proficiency in Asia. The Philippines placed only second with 6.69, followed by Indonesia (5.99), India (5.79) and Thailand (5.71). This was gleaned from IELTS results in 2008, during which some 35,000 Filipinos — 70 percent of them nursing graduates applying for jobs abroad — took the language exam to evaluate their English proficiency in reading, writing, speaking and listening.

During a conference on English organized by the Centre for International Education (CIE) in Manila, Andrew King, country director of IDP Education Pty. Ltd. Philippines warned that the continuous decline in Filipinos’ English proficiency could affect the growth of the call center industry which provides thousands of jobs at home and abroad.

English still rules

In an interview with Planet Philippines, King stressed that English remains the lingua franca or default language of international business and diplomacy.

“Things like international treaties, business contracts and so on, are written in English, because it’s an exact language,” he says. “You have to have people that can speak, read and write it well. To operate at high levels, you need very good English.”

He states that employers in today’s global market want people that have not only international experience and good qualifications that are recognized all over the world but also high proficiency in spoken and written English. “English has less elasticity and flexibility so you can say exactly what you want to say and not argue about the meaning. If you get your tenses, plurals and prepositions wrong, then you’re not going to be accurate.”

He adds: “Here and around the world, people are asking for better competency in English. Being able to get by is not enough.”

King says proficiency in English is a huge advantage for every job seeker, even those who have no plans of working overseas. Foreign companies in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector, he notes, locally administer their contracts in English. “A foreign company won’t enter into a contract that’s not of their language.”

For business consultant Peter Wallace, who also spoke at the CIE English conference, comprehension is the problem. “Do you understand what you’re hearing? Do you understand what it means when you say that? These are the issues.”

BOP takes action

The biggest obstacle for the ever-growing BPO industry sector is recruiting enough capable graduates with the required English skills. Industry observers estimate that only three in every 100 applicants are able to gain satisfactory employment. In certain cases, the BPO industry has taken it upon themselves to train prospective employees so that company growth will not be impeded.

“The formal educational system is hard-pressed to train young Filipinos in proper grammatical English, so the private sector has taken the lead,” says Frank Holz, CEO of Outsource2Philippines.

Observers have attributed the decline in English skills to budgetary constraints and lack of proper infrastructure in the country’s educational system. “In fairness, the Department of Education is trying its best, but unfortunately, this generation of teachers does not have the capability,” says Wallace.

King attributes the decline in English to the poor quality and training of local schoolteachers, as well as the continuing use of outdated or erroneous textbooks. “Students are not being taught correct English and the resources and materials they’re given is incorrect.”

Bilingual policy

Another problem, and a continuing topic of debate, has been the educational system’s bilingual policy, adopted 35 years ago which compels schools to use English and Filipino as medium of instruction. “People use the excuse that there’s ‘Filipino English.’ Filipino English is English as long as it’s correct. If it’s incorrect English, it doesn’t matter what you call it. It’s just being an apologist for people’s mistakes is wrong,” King points out.

The incorrect use of the language on local TV newscasts and English-dubbed cartoons, also contributes to the decline in English proficiency among Filipinos. “Everyday, on virtually all television and newspapers, you hear incorrect use of prepositions,” adds King.

He cites the words “in” and “on” as examples. “You hear the car was driving on the lane, which would mean on top of, rather than in, as in within the two lines.”

He also blames technology such as the internet and SMS messaging (texting) on cell phones, which favors speed and levity but fosters poor written skills. “We use abbreviations in chat rooms, and we have created a whole new language, and texting on cell phones has created a short language.”

Even cultural prejudice and ignorance is an issue, King laments. “Snobbery – you’re a snob if you speak English. No, you’re a person that’s committed to learn more than one language.”

Gov’t response

In response to IDP’s released test results, the government assures that it remains committed to improving the quality of teachers in the Philippines, particularly in public schools. Malacañang cites a number of ongoing projects to improve the English proficiency of teachers and students in public schools, such as the “Project Turning Around,” “Every Child A Reader Program,” and the National English Proficiency Program. Officials also said the government is allotting P1.1 billion to train nearly 400,000 teachers in Math, Science and English skills.

Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Augusto Santos said he brought up the problem during one Cabinet meeting and top government officials agreed to do something about it.

“We are part of the global community and there is economic competition among countries in the world. Let’s face it, English is still the number one language in the entire world,” said Santos.

King says that the problem could be traced to the prevailing social and political conditions in the country. “One of the issues is that there are too many children for teachers to cope with. You can go back to population control, so there are so many that you can’t manage within the education system. But that’s a whole different argument.”

One possible solution he suggests is to import external people to analyze the English curriculum and resources, and try to identify the issues that are affecting the ability to communicate accurately.

Another solution, adds Holz, is to use the internet in English training. “More work needs to be done on this, but eventually there won’t be as great a reliance on instructor-led training,” he says. “Rather the entire process from assessment through delivery through final validation will be able to be done online.”

Whatever the solution, King says it’s going to take time. “You’re not going to magically turn around a generation of people whose English has been taught incorrectly.”