This week marks the start of commencement exercises all over Negros Oriental. Thousands more will be joining the labor force, at a time when the Philippine unemployment rate has hit 27.5 percent as of the end of 2013.
Translated into actual figures, that means more than 12 million Filipinos, or roughly one out of four, do not have a job. Of this number, 2.5 million alone were added between September and December.
These could easily be attributed to the natural disasters that struck the country one after the other. There were the Mindanao floods, the Bohol earthquake and Supertyphoon Yolanda. There also was the man-made disaster called the Zamboanga City siege.
Government figures say those with the highest unemployment rate belong to the 18-24 years old bracket (52.3 percent). It was 33.1 percent in the 25-34 age bracket, 25 percent in the 35-44 age bracket and 17.7 percent among those 45 years old and older.
It would then follow that of those who graduate this month, only one in two would find a job. This is certainly a bleak forecast, especially with the ironic 7.2-percent growth in the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) last year, leading all its neighbors except only China.
Our graduates should be ready to embrace this grim reality. The solution is not to crowd the offices of our politicians to join the ranks of Job Order employees but to create their own dignified jobs.
Towards this end, there’s a simple formula for success: Find a need and fill it.
