JobStreet, DTI-BOI, JICA, T.I.P., sign agreement to host the Philippine Auto Industry Academia Linkage (PAAL) Congress

The automotive industry in the Philippines is experiencing a dramatic boom. 10 years ago, 100,000 cars were produced over the course of a year. Now, 400,000 are being manufactured annually. With projections showing that car sales will achieve 1 million between 2025 and 2028, companies across the entire automotive supply chain are stepping up their efforts to recruit more employees in response to increased demand.

(L-R) Ms. Cynthia Llanes, Vice President for Academic Affairs, Technological Institute of the Philippines; Mr. Angelo Q. Lahoz, Senior Vice President, Technological Institute of the Philippines; Ms. Ma. Corazon Halili-Dichosa, Executive Director, Board of Investments; Mr. Masashi Takano, Team Leader, DTI-BOI-JICA Project; Mr. Philip A. Gioca, Country Manager, JobStreet.com Philippines, Inc and Monica Palomares, Marketing Specialist, JobStreet.com. Philippines, Inc.  Representatives from each partner organization sign a memorandum of agreement recently at the Department of Trade and Industry Head Office in Makati.

One concern faced by the industry has to do with the human resources involved – there is a weak linkage between universities, whose fresh graduates will represent a large part of the new workforce, and the manufacturing and assembly segments of the automotive industry. Both students and university staff demonstrate limited knowledge of the companies and processes involved in automotive production, while most OJT programs for students are typically found in the servicing sector, far removed from assembly and manufacturing.

To address this concern, JobStreet.com Philippines has partnered up with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Board of Investments (BOI) with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), and the Technological Institute of the Philippines (TIP), to help strengthen the ties between the academe and the automotive industry.

Recently, the parties involved signed a memorandum of agreement that underscored their commitment to the creation of the Philippine Auto Industry-Academia Linkage Congress (PAAL Congress), an event that will be attended by students and faculty from dozens of universities, officials from TESDA training centers with automotive courses, and engineers and executives from automotive companies. The goal of the PAAL Congress is to bolster the connection between the automotive industry and the academe, catering especially to engineering graduates who may be future members of this workforce. It will be held on September 28, 2018, at the TIP -Quezon City Campus.

Mr. Philip Gioca, Country Manager of JobStreet Philippines, said that JobStreet’s main contribution will be connecting the best of the best graduates from different universities, including TIP, to the bigger value chain that supplies the entire automotive industry.

“Where we’ve previously focused on providing quality solutions for jobseekers across the entire market, this partnership gives us the opportunity to focus on a single industry and understand a value chain that we might not necessarily be aware of. This partnership represents an important learning experience for us, determining what kind of talents these automotive companies are looking for, and through what we learn, we’ll be able to match our millions of jobseekers with the needs of the more than 100 companies in the supply chain,” Mr. Gioca said.

The project predicts that the 2028 expected increase of annual car production will lead to an increase in direct employment in the automotive industry by between 700,000 and 1,170,000 jobs. In addition to this, there will be a significant increase in indirect employment, creating many new jobs in sectors such as manufacturing of the materials required to produce cars, automotive sales and maintenance, transport and storage, and petroleum stations, JobStreet’s participation in this project validates their vision of providing Filipinos with jobs. Through this and other partnerships with the government and the academe, JobStreet aims to refine its understanding of each industry, and create opportunities to connect even more jobseekers with their future careers.

University officials and students, in turn, are called to participate in the Congress, which will expose students to new careers and give a glimpse of a possibly hitherto unexplored industry.

The Congress is a component of a 2-year pilot project between JICA and DTI, known as the “Elaboration of Industrial Promotion Plans using Value Chain Analysis,” which started in late 2016 and aims to bolster the DTI’s efforts to promote the automotive industry through development of concrete policy directions and elaboration plans.

***For those who want to register at the PAAL Congress this September, click here for full details.