Skills shortage top business worries in RP
Skills shortage top business worries in RP
For the second year in a row, lack of skilled work force emerged as the biggest constraint to expansion among businesses in the Philippines, summarized results of the Grant Thornton International Business Report released by Grant Thornton International Ltd member firm Punongbayan & Araullo (P&A) read.
This year’s survey of the attitudes and expectations of medium-sized businesses covered 7,800 respondents from 34 countries.
Fifty-eight percent of Philippine-based businessmen who responded to the survey said the growth of their business has been worst affected by the lack of skilled work force, compared to 43% last year. Globally, the figure for this constraint increased to 37% from 34%.
“This is a global worry, no doubt about it, but we are in a more dire situation seeing how we now belong to the top three countries whose business growth is limited most by this human resource problem,” a statement quoted P&A managing partner and CEO Gregorio S. Navarro as saying.
The Philippines shares the third spot with Australia, while Thailand and New Zealand were 1st and 2nd respectively.
The study also asked businessmen if cost of finance, shortage of long-term finance, shortage of working capital, shortage of orders/reduced demand, and regulations/red tape were key constraints to expansion. Results this year show an increase in percentage of Filipino respondents saying these are major constraints.
Meanwhile, Watson Wyatt Philippines, Inc. Managing Director James Matti said in a briefing yesterday that firms should offer flexible remuneration schemes if they expect to keep their young, increasingly mobile work force. He cited the need for firms to find innovative ways to cater benefits to the lifestyle an economic needs of the new generation of workers.
(As published in BusinessWorld, 18 March 2008. Articles about this particular IBR result have also been published on the front pages of the Philippine Star, 19 March 2008, and BusinessMirror, 19 March 2008; in Manila Bulletin, 19 March 2008, and the Manila Times, 19 March 2008.)