On August 25, 2008, the Philippine Professional Regulatory Commission released statistics indicating nearly half a million Filipino nurses are unemployed (see news).
This educated unemployment problem is nothing new to the Philippines. Prior to the creation of the government’s labor export policy in the 1970s which developed institutions to facilitate overseas employment for its citizens, there were tens of thousands of graduates who could not find a job to match their educational backgrounds in the domestic labor market. Unemployment rates for those who graduated from college in the 1960s were more than three times greater than those with only a high school diploma. Those with college degrees were even 11 times more likely to be unemployed compared to those with only an elementary school education. Contrary to what parents usually instill in their children, the more educated you are, the more likely you are to be unemployed.
After more than thirty years of the government’s labor export policy, the same unemployment problem among the educated continues to exist. A recent Asian Development Bank Study shows that there are too many highly educated people in the Philippines chasing a few jobs. Numerous private tertiary schools have sprouted in the Philippines to fill the demand for training for the overseas labor market. But many of these schools are also diploma mills giving degrees that do not necessarily mean the graduate is properly trained. The government regulates its private tertiary schools through board exams administered by the Professional Regulatory Commission for all graduates seeking a professional job. But board exam passage rates indicate a lack of quality in many of its schools. Many Filipino graduates are unable to find a job either domestically or abroad, from either being overqualified or having invested in a degree that is meaningless.
Is this brain drain or brain waste? What should the government do, if anything, to combat this problem?
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