Too Many Low – Quality Jobs in the Philippines

Philippines is one weird country economically. We have many college – educated young workforce but yet their salaries doesn’t even justify the blood, sweat and tears of their parents who sacrificed too much for their child’s college education.?I have too many friends who were college graduates that end up in jobs that had salaries of Php 12 000 to Php 15 000 in supposedly stable industries like software industry, finance and office work that I couldn’t understand how they ended up in such jobs or why these employers offer ridiculously low wages in exchange for their future employee’s time in their firm. What had made these employers daring enough to offer disappointingly – low salaries and why do these college – educated young professionals just keep on biting the employer’s bait if they know that such low wages will destroy them in the long run? I remember hearing a story about a licensed electronics engineer who ended up working as a saleslady in a certain shopping mall. I barely knew her well but I do know that she was few year – level higher than me when I was still studying at the university. When I heard about her becoming a sales lady in a shopping mall even if she was a licensed electronics engineer, I asked myself why did she ended up working in such profession despite her intelligence and the great potential of her license to get her life improved? What did the manufacturing companies done to her that she ended up working at a shopping mall so she could survive? What did the university where she graduated didn’t do that she ended up working at a job that anybody could do hereby wasting her potential? Although many of my peers were electronics engineers and engineering graduates, their career paths were rather depressing and I myself had witnessed how depressing it is. I once applied at a telecommunications equipment provider (with the likes of Fiber Home or other contractors) few years ago when I see in their job posting that they need an engineer to become a part of their team, so I went to Mandaue City to be interviewed there. I was quite happy that I was not hired there because I found out that the job was very dangerous (the prospective employee will climb many cellphone towers and posts) and the pay was quite low (Php 12 000 per month). I knew how important being a telecommunications engineer is to the telecommunications industry but I didn’t know how disappointing the wages and benefits would be despite their importance. Php 12 000 a month on such important job seems to be ridiculous and beyond to my understanding but I really think that somebody out there was benefiting from it and now sucking the life out of a poor soul who would take this low – wage job.

The notion that “You will never become rich by working alone” is actually a recent phenomenon. In the 1950s – era US, it is not unusual for a high – school graduate to become rich and could support his family when he marries by working alone. He wasn’t inclined to build a business (which is too reliant on luck) because he can feed himself and her family by his salary alone. He could buy a house, a car and could afford some luxuries and still have money to be spared for future use and savings. Now? Many people are delaying marriage because even if they are ready to settle down, their pockets aren’t ready to shell out thousands of dollars continuously to support their future family that they had no choice but to search for higher positions that pays well (but this maneuver will cost them many years of their lives because they needed the much experience in order to reach higher levels), build a business (which had one percent chance of ever succeeding), or not to marry at all (which had mixed critical reception, too many of them had thoughts of regret but couldn’t do anything). Women, especially in US, complained that they could hardly find good men because there are few marriage – worthy men and there an extra supply of men who holds jobs that couldn’t even support their own families. They were looking for men that had stable jobs and stable incomes but they were too few and most of them were taken. I do not know how technology and employment would balance themselves in order to create an economic space that would allow people to hold more impactful jobs and machines that will take over boring jobs, but when I see it, technology didn’t do much to create a challenging job and those that couldn’t be solved by technology like cleaning roads and improving the internet search algorithms (I couldn’t believe that training the AI to improve their search results was done manually by humans in the form of clickworkers) fell on humans who are getting paid in crumbs. In the Philippines, it’s much worse because for one thing, most of the jobs proliferating here were KPOs (knowledge – process outsourcing) companies and BPOs (business – process outsourcing) companies which had low to decent amount of pay (ranging from Php 12 000 to Php 15 000 for new hires) and little career progression (it is not secret that most call – center agents rarely lasts a year in BPO industries because of graveyard shifts and stresses that affected their well – being). These are the jobs that young people with college degrees will get if they failed to get jobs at the industries that are connected to the courses they have taken. I have no animosity against BPO and KPO companies but I have many friends that used to work there and they were telling me almost the same things that work in BPO companies (especially call – center agents) were stressful, the pay was low and they are awake and working at night that it took a toll on their health, especially mental health because humans weren’t simply designed to be working at night. With the kind of salaries offered to the highly – educated (and highly – motivated) workforce in the Philippines which couldn’t even earn them a proper life (most of them aren’t locals in cities but rather they came from far – flung provinces and they pay exorbitant rents that eats almost half their salaries) and couldn’t support their families back in their province, they will take drastic measures in order to get ahead in life and earn more money. In the episode of Kapuso Mo, Jessica Soho, a famous Philippine news magazine show, they featured a 23 – year old Instagram influencer who had become an erotic entertainer because the salary in many of his previous jobs were very low and had the burning desire to become financially – independent quickly. He was able to earn six – digit income in his erotic shows but he was disowned by his family, especially by his father. He was forced to do that because he was painfully aware how low the salaries offered in the Philippines are and he needs to find a way quickly on how to become rich and get away from the claws of poverty. He may have indeed escaped poverty but it required him big sacrifices in order to win against poverty. He may be the lucky few who defeated poverty but there are too many people who were defeated by poverty and now they are paying the price.

Filipinos are working hard but remained poor. The government may have been trumpeting for years that unemployment rates (which is hovering around five percent) in the Philippines remained low because the other ninety – five percent of working – age adults have jobs, but ever wonder what these ninety – five percent of these salaried professionals have say on the quality of jobs they have right now? I came across an article which states that a salary of a bank teller is only Php 10 000 per month, which is little over the contractual employee’s salary of Php 12 000 pesos if he works in a company in a contractual basis. I was actually surprised that was the salary of a bank teller because I anticipated that it would be higher like Php 15 000 because they work in banks and banks are financial institutions. And financial institutions work with money directly like saving and investing its depositor’s money on low risk, low gain enterprises so theoretically they would earn huge profits because they have millions of pesos in their portfolios and investing money on such low risk and low gain enterprises wouldn’t be a problem because they can still see hundreds of thousands of pesos in earnings each month. Banks could become so powerful and big that they could meddle in politics, but I couldn’t understand how the bank tellers could have such low wages. Even if we say that bank teller’s job would be easy (save for the occasional occurrences of people who might have fraudulent dealings from time to time in which they have to deal), the Php 10 000 salary is an insult to the people who worked hard and paid for colleges in order to have good chance for a good life.

The most glaring of the examples of an educated poor is the nurse. In the war against the COVID – 19 pandemic which is lasting for a year and a half, we could now see how fucked up our healthcare system is. COVID – 19 pandemic has tested our healthcare system to its limits and now the COVID – 19 virus is winning against the Philippines healthcare system and has exposed its weaknesses. Weaknesses like too few nurses in one hospitals which could easily tire them because they have to care too many patients, very long hours of duty that routinely lasts twelve hours because they were too few of them on duty and many resigned from their jobs, very low pay because the hospital administrators still consider nursing as a liability because they don’t produce money and they have to pay them, and lastly, their working environment is brutal and unforgiving that the current generation of nurses doesn’t encourage the youth to be a future nurse unless they really want it. The nursing profession was so abused and underpaid that they have been protesting the government and hospital administrations of their demands but to no avail but at least the government has heard the nurse’s voices of their situations and they will try their best to improve the working conditions of this so called soldiers in the COVID – 19 pandemic war but I have yet to hear the hospital administrators and owners on how to they would improve the working conditions of their nurses though.

This reminds me of my neighbor who used to work as a nurse in a big private hospital in Cebu City. She was a mysterious and attractive woman who had spent seven years working in a major private hospital in Cebu City. The one thing I noticed about her is she will return home on irregular hours. On some days she will return in the middle of the night and in the other days she will return to her apartment in the early hours of the morning. Sometimes she will come home on normal hours like 5 PM where I could meet her for a casual chat. And whenever she returns, she often looks tired and gloomy, probably because of the very long hours she spent on the hospital caring for patients which would clock for more than ten hours. I was able to deduce how long she works because I noticed that when she goes out from her apartment to work, it is almost 6 AM (her apartment is just one jeep ride away to hospital and there is barely any traffic on early morning) and when she returns, it is already 8 PM. Later, I noticed for months that I couldn’t see her at all, so I thought that she may have been transferred to another timeslot in the hospital. One day, while riding in a jeep on my way to work, she embarked together with her co-worker to return home. I was shocked. I didn’t expect to see her in the business district in Cebu City which is the Cebu Business Park. Turns out that she resigned from her job as a nurse in the big private hospital there because of very low salary (Php 11 000 to be precise) and now working in a BPO company as a call – center agent in graveyard shift. She said she was happy about it because she can take on a different career with different pay (slightly higher than her old job at the private hospital) and she says it is less stressful than being a nurse in a private hospital. Even with all her experience and years of service in a famous private hospital here in Cebu City, the salary was insultingly low that I wonder how she was able to endure this paid slavery by this hospital and why this hospital hasn’t done anything to increase her salary and acknowledge her contributions to the hospital. There is a big difference between the salaries of nurses working in the government hospital and in the private hospitals. Nurses in government hospitals are earning in excess of Php 20 000 per month while nurses in big, private hospitals are earning from Php 9 000 to Php 12 000 pesos per month. The society keeps on telling us that “Mahal magkasakit” which is actually true, but why do these private hospital – bound nurses have abysmally low salaries when private hospitals are charging the ordinary Filipinos almost hundreds of thousands of pesos for COVID – 19 treatments? Where have all those money go and who the hell pocketed the profits? Nowadays, hospitals are run like businesses that when they treat a patient, they charge so much that hospitals could wipe out entire life savings of their patients. Worse, most Filipinos are poor and couldn’t afford healthcare when diseases and emergencies strikes that slowly, a good healthcare is becoming a luxury that only a rich person could afford. Many Filipinos are one hospital bill away from poverty.

The future of employment should be a fulfilling, stable and high – paying one. A high quality job is the one that pays a local living wage, provides paid sick leave, predictable and reliable hours, advancement opportunities and offer reasonable worker voice structures, among others. Nowadays, the job market in the Philippines is rife with low – quality jobs that the employers and the government must do something in order to create high – quality jobs. If the technology could create boring jobs and make the humans obsolete, then the reverse must also be true; the technology can be used to create high – quality jobs. If the technology could create high – quality jobs, we should prepare the labor workforce in “up – skilling” their current skills in preparation for using the technology that requires a higher amount of skill. The employers shouldn’t keep on telling the government and colleges what they want but instead, the employers must be active in making the people, especially college graduates, job – worthy by apprenticeships that mirror the work done by their actual employees, paying them on their internships and giving chances for disadvantage groups like college dropouts, high – school graduates, persons with disabilities and senior citizens to work on their firm. Employers should offer living wages if they intend to hire people to work for them and employers shouldn’t dare hire human beings if they can’t offer proper wages in exchange for their precious time that will be spent in their companies. If the companies will hire people at reduced wages, they should think about its ramifications because if you offer low salaries on employees, you will get a stunted workforce. When you have a stunted workforce, you will get reduced productivity. When you get low productivity, you can’t deliver your goods to your client properly. If you can’t deliver properly the goods needed by your clients, you will lose clients. When you lose your clients, you will lose your income. When you lose your income, you company will die. Nothings beats a failure better than well – fed, well – paid and motivated employees who feels that their company treats them with utmost respect and treats them like a prized treasure.

Colleges and universities must be active in guiding their students to better career choices by choosing employers who could offer high quality jobs for the graduating students. Historically, employers are flocking to the universities to recruit graduating students and they knew they could offer lower wages because of the myth perpetrated by the employers themselves saying that students are just starting on their careers so they must be offered low salaries. Now, as a catalyst for economic development, colleges and universities should refuse employers who couldn’t offer living wages or high – quality jobs to prospective job candidates so that the future workers will be protect from low wages and poor working conditions. On one hand, some job is better than no job, but once someone is stuck in a low – quality job it can become very difficult for them to leave. Saying no to employers might be hard but it is one step closer towards better job prospects for the future and had to potential to improve the lives not only to those that were spending their lives in education but also to those that are at a disadvantage like the minorities (people with disabilities and senior citizens). I hope that in the near future, several colleges will stand up and will decline to provide training for an employer who would not provide high – enough quality jobs. Call centers and medical billing were the prime examples of the types of programs colleges were reluctant to start because of low wages and poor working conditions. As the work of the future arrives, being mindful of new employer partnerships and the quality of the jobs they have to offer graduates will be critical for college leaders.

Employers are potentially the best institutions to pull millions of people out of poverty and change their lives if they are conscientious enough and care more about people than profits.