Knee jerk response

The government’s massive construction program plus the bullish property sector are expected to be hampered by a severe shortage of trained and experienced construction workers. The knee jerk response of the secretary of labor is to announce a possible slowdown in the deployment of such workers abroad.

That’s about as horrible a response as can be expected from a Cabinet member. Of course he protected himself by saying he will first study the possibility. But the fact that such a knee jerk response crossed his mind is disappointing.

Why deprive our trained construction workers the chance to earn a decent pay abroad? If we need them, we should match or improve on the international pay they are getting. It is only fair. Law of supply and demand should prevail.

When I bought a condo unit five or more years ago, my wife noticed a problem with the finishing of the floor, among others. The developer fixed the problems and explained that it was difficult to get good workers because the trained ones are going abroad. So, the problem isn’t new. That’s what many local hotel operators are also saying. They invest in training raw recruits and after a few months, they are offered jobs on cruise ships or hotels abroad at twice the pay or even more.

It is a mindset problem on the part of employers who think that in our labor surplus economy, they have an edge. That may be true in general as in jobs covered by “endo,” but when we are talking of skilled workers, they have the upper hand.

Skilled workers, because there are not so many of them compared to the openings available, are able to name their price. They also look beyond the domestic market for their skills because in a country where working overseas is common, that’s how it is.

A construction company looking for a skilled plumber, electrician or welder must offer a pay package that can compete with foreign offers. Market forces can raise earnings for skilled workers better than labor unions.

But there is so much unemployment in our country, one might say. Yes, that’s true but the unemployed are mostly without highly demanded skills. Indeed, a vocational school graduate who can work in a machine shop is more employable than a college graduate who has a degree in mass communication from a diploma mill but hardly got an education worth the tuition fees paid.

In fairness to government, past and present, there have been programs to address this situation. The K-12 program is one. Tesda is another. Except that we don’t get to train our people fast enough to meet demand here and abroad. Maybe we must spend more money on training programs. Maybe we don’t have enough trainers to handle more programs.

That is the challenge to our Labor officials… how to speed up training in highly demanded jobs. Slowing down deployment of skilled labor abroad is a copout… a knee jerk response.

In fact, training our workers should be high priority. With ASEAN integration in the works, we could end up with a freer movement of labor in the region. Unless we train more of our people quickly enough, we will lose out on the desirable higher paying jobs even right here at home.

Getting highly skilled Filipinos to stay home and work for projects here is a matter of offering them the right pay package. Entrepreneur Ben Yao of SteelAsia told me that his steel plants all over the country are being managed by skilled Filipinos who used to be OFWs.

It is simple, he explained to me. I offer them a highly competitive compensation package and a chance to live near their families. He has had no problems getting the right engineering and other technical staff from among Filipinos overseas.

Maybe that’s the problem of local construction companies. Outside of the large ones, many are family run and are not used to paying the kind of money that is now expected for skilled construction workers.

There should be no problems attracting the OFWs working on construction projects abroad if the government and its contractors are willing to compete for their services in terms of world market based compensation packages. It is the same thing for the local property sector building all those condos.

According to Lito Madrasto of the Philippine Constructors Association, government must reflect proper direct and indirect labor cost estimates for their infra projects. Government contractors cannot price their bids higher than government estimates as the law sets bid ceilings. In other words, labor cost estimates of government projects must be competitive versus world standards.

There is one other good reason why government must work double time in training workers. There will be a very negative political backlash if government allows the Chinese contractors to bring in Chinese workers for China-funded infra projects.

No amount of justification for bringing in foreign workers in the face of rising unemployment in the country will be believed. Indeed, expect China to insist in bringing in their workers. This is what they have been doing in Africa and the practice had been resented by people everywhere.

I can understand why government is now worried. They may not be able to really go all out in their Build Build Build program because of a deficit in trained manpower. This is why they need a partnership with the private sector because government in itself cannot compete on pay scales.

Let this boom in infra spending benefit Filipino workers. We most likely have enough trained Filipinos in the construction trade but they must be offered a proper package so they will return from abroad and work here. Anything else like preventing them from leaving is sheer cruelty on the part of government.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is bchanco@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco.