PH DROPS A NOTCH IN WEF REPORT

The Philippines ranks high in capacity but does poorly in deployment due to weak labor force participation employment gender gap

This year’s World Economic Forum report on Human Capital Index saw the Philippines move to a lower global ranking from 2016.

From its 49th spot last year, the Philippines ranked 50th out of 130 economies in the human capital index, or in its ability to maximize the population’s economic potential. This is the second consecutive year that the Philippines’ rank has gone down, from 46th in 2015.

The 2017 report, Preparing People for the Future of Work, measures four key areas of human capital developments--capacity, which is largely determined by past investment in formal education; deployment or the application and accumulation of skills through work; development, which is the formal education of the next generation workforce and continued upskilling and reskilling of existing workers; and know-how or the breadth and depth of specialized skills-use at work

Countries’ performance is also measured across five distinct age groups or generations from 0-14 years, 15-24 years, 25-54 years 5564 years and 65 years and over.

Grouped in the lower-middle income classification, the Philippines is said to have developed 64 percent of its human capital, higher than the world’s average of 62 percent.

The country ranked high in the capacity subindex--at the 19th spot--with high marks in the areas of tertiary education. However, it scored poorly in the deployment subindex (87th), as a result of weak labor force participation and low marks in its employment gender gap. Meanwhile, the country ranked 60th in the development and know-how sub-indices.

“The Human Capital Report 2017 finds countries’ failure to adequately develop people’s talents is underpinning inequality by depriving people of opportunity and access to a broad base of good-quality work,” WEF said. “Investments in education often fail due to inadequate focus on lifelong learning, failure to develop high-skilled opportunities and a mismatch of skills required for entering and succeeding in the labor market.”

Saadia Zahidi, WEF head for education, gender and work, cautioned that every country is at risk if they fail to adopt a more holistic approach to nurturing talent that takes into account a proactive approach to managing the transition from education to employment and to ongoing learning and skills acquisition.