Talent security

THE Philippines today faces several security challenges, including terrorism, insurgency and crime. A security risk not often discussed is labor or talent security. Economic development depends largely on a country’s availability, distribution and security of talent.

On March 13, AmCham Philippines held its First Security Summit. The following are some of my points of view on that summit.

Private sector role

The private sector, particularly in the Philippines, plays an important role in enhancing labor security or labor market security. There is labor market security when the country’s environment provides ample opportunities for adequate incomeearning activities or where the labor supply approximates the demand. Unfortunately, the Philippines is a labor-surplus economy. The way to enhance labor security is for the government, the private sector, and other stakeholders to collaborate in 1) increasing the demand for jobs by making the Philippines more attractive to domestic and foreign investments and 2) improving the quality of labor supply through massive upskilling and reskilling programs that will develop in the Filipino workforce the skills needed now and in the future.

Labor market resilience and adaptability

It takes an all-of-society approach to create a more resilient and adaptable Filipino workforce. The private sector must help predict the kind of skills that will be needed by the market over the long term. This should be a major input to educational and training institutions whose aim should be to develop the skills of the current and emerging Filipino workforce. Based on recent surveys, the skills needed to perform work in the near future are of two general types: technological skills that have to do with artificial intelligence, machine learning, Internet of Things, and programming, and soft skills like critical thinking, communication, collaboration or teamwork, creativity or innovation, adaptability, initiative and resilience.

Labor rights in supply chain

There is a global war for talent that’s currently raging. It will likely continue into the future. Businesses today compete for the best talent and underscore the primacy of people, talent or human resources in their operation. Big businesses ensure that they abide by labor standards set by international conventions, as well as by the laws of the land where they operate. They also ensure that all the other employers and service providers in their value chain or supply chain adhere to these labor standards and respect labor rights as well. By and large, they are particularly against, and they do not condone forced labor, child labor and exploitation of migrant workers.

Future of work

The future of work, particularly in the Philippines, will continue to be influenced by change drivers and megatrends, such as technological developments, global warming and climate change, globalization and hyperlocalization, geopolitical developments, and ongoing demographic change. The pandemic is not a change driver per se — to me, it is a change accelerator. Because of the pandemic, we had to make, starting in 2020, the changes that we should have started doing this year.

Among the change drivers, technology in general, and artificial intelligence in particular, is the most disruptive in shaping and reshaping the future of work. In the past, work was a place where you went to spend eight hours getting paid. Today, work is about creating customer value anywhere and anytime. In that kind of new environment, employers and workers must cooperate to make the business viable, and employment secure. Job security, to me, has been redefined as the ability to unlearn old skills and attitudes and learn new skills and competencies to perform a variety of roles — not jobs — even as workers move from one department, company, or country to another. To be able to ensure job security for all, the stakeholders and social partners must proactively work together to determine what skills and roles will be needed in the future. Then, government and the private sector, the academe and training institutions, the workers, the students, and their parents — all of these institutions must work together to educate, re-educate, train and re-train the Filipino workforce to make it globally competitive, to safeguard labor security and to promote inclusive prosperity.

Artificial intelligence

AI can be both a bane and a boon in the workplace. AI is basically a tool that can help human beings perform better in practically all aspects of work. Starting now and into the future, work shall be mostly technology-driven or technology-aided. While some jobs could be rendered redundant by AI, new jobs could also be created.

To protect the livelihood of the workers, they must undergo massive training to acquire the technological skills that will make them operate smart machines or make them effectively work with smart machines. AI shall be able to help improve the speed and quality of the work done by humans. While AI will likely be very efficient in calculations, analysis, and similar operations, customers will likely prefer to interact with fellow humans who have empathy and compassion — which smart machines run by AI do not have now and in the near future. Humans with soft skills will always have work to do.

Unfortunately, AI has the ability to use personal information in ways that can intrude on the privacy of individuals by raising the analysis of these data to new levels of speed and power. There must be rules that should be developed by human institutions on how AI is used while protecting privacy and civil liberties.

International Women’s Day

Unlike other societies, the Philippines seems more matriarchal, where mothers have more influence over their children because of their handson participation in child-rearing. In many companies here, there are women CEOs and women in the C-Suite. The incumbent AmCham President, Sara Murphy, is a woman. There are a number of women on the AmCham Boards at the national level, as well as in the chapters.

The celebration of International Women’s Day should remind us all to practice diversity, gender equality and inclusion. Women today are definitely involved in meaningful participation, as well as in decisionmaking processes in almost every endeavor.

Parting words

The world continues to change. Change can unsettle people unless there is security, resiliency and sustainability in society. The stakeholders and social partners across diverse sectors must continue to work together in pursuit of a shared vision for a better future. Like it or not, the future will come, but a better future is only possible if all of us work together to prepare ourselves for the uneasy task. We can do this by unlearning some of the things we don’t need and learning new things that will enable us to contribute our share in building that better future — for ourselves and our children’s children.

Ernie Cecilia is the chairman of the Human Capital Committee and the Publication Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (AmCham); chairman of the Employers Confederation of the Philippines’ (ECOP’s) TWG on Labor and Social Policy Issues; and past president of the People Management Association of the Philippines (PMAP). He can be reached at erniececilia@gmail.com.