A game-changer for the growing labor force

The fact that Filipinos are among the youngest populations not only in Asia but in the world—with a median age of just 25 years—should be our country’s greatest advantage.

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But in a nation where school diplomas too often fail to guarantee employment, this youth dividend is being wasted. Instead of powering manufacturing hubs, laboratories, and other high-yielding workplaces, millions of young Filipinos languish in precarious or low-paying jobs—or worse, in joblessness.

For decades, the Philippines has been suffering from a disconnect between school learning and workplace realities. Employers lament the shortage of qualified skilled workers, while graduates lament the shortage of good-paying jobs.

It is no coincidence that countries dominating the global marketplace, such as Singapore, Germany, and Switzerland, are those that have perfected a training model in which skills development is tightly integrated with the needs of private industries that provide gainful employment.

Our country, by contrast, has allowed a culture of "diploma inflation" and misaligned degrees to persist, producing graduates whose skills the market unfortunately does not absorb.

If the Philippines wants a globally competitive workforce, higher productivity, and lower unemployment or underemployment, it must invest—seriously and more than ever—in its people.