DOLE EXEC SAYS
    Career guidance, coaching to help solve job mismatch

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    Labor and Employment Officer II Ryan Delos Reyes and Punto Central Luzon General Manager attentively listen to speakers of the Jobs Fair event in SM Pampanga on May 1.

    Photo by Joey Aguilar

    CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – Career guidance and employment coaching could help students decide what course to take, preventing job mismatches and underemployment.

    This was revealed by an official of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) during the jobs fair held at the Event Center in SM Pampanga on May 1.

    “We need to have our students guided not really to influence them but to guide them on their decision-making process regarding their choice of career,” said Ryan Delos Reyes, program manager of Career Guidance Employment and Coaching Network which is under DOLE’s Bureau of Local Employment.

    He told Punto Central Luzon that they also continue to provide regional partners, Public Employment  Service Offices (PESO), and Network Guidance counselors with the needed seminars, trainings and adequate labor market information.

    He said career guidance caters to high school students while employment coaching is for college students taking up technical and vocational courses.

    In close coordination with the Department of Education, Delos Reyes said they were able to hold 2,200 seminars and trainings in 2011 benefiting more than 270,000 students which included their parents as participants. 

    “We have included the parents because we believe that it is vital or important in the career decision of their children,” he said.

    This year, they are targeting 209,000 beneficiaries but “with the on-going expansion of our regional networks, we know we could exceed our targets.”

    But he disclosed that a lot of people are not yet aware of the guidance career and employment coaching program being implemented by DOLE. “So there is really a need to strengthen our advocacies.”

    Delos Reyes noted that the Central Luzon Network especially in Pampanga is very responsive to the program compared to other regions.

    Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz earlier announced that they are intensifying the said program in the regional level this summer.

    She said seminars have been held in different parts of the country benefiting thousands of graduating students and jobseekers.

    However, Delos Reyes admitted that there are no studies yet to measure the effectiveness of the program.

    However, he said that they continue expanding the program, creating regional and local networks “so we could reach a lot of students.”

    “If the school is requesting for it then we could do that,” he said.

    MORE JOBS, VACANCIES

    Jerry Borja, information officer of DOLE Region 3, said they found out that there are a lot of job vacancies but graduates are not fit or qualified on the positions being offered by companies.

    But under the program, Borja said high school and college students are coached, guided and given the right information about in-demand jobs in the next five to 10 years or more.

    He said the people working for the program are also the ones who do the data gathering, research and studies which are being presented to beneficiaries.

    “We also monitor businesses that are booming and companies which plan to expand. The Business Process Outsourcing or call center industry is one good example which have remained stable in the past 10 years,” he said.

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