ILOILO may be Western Visayas’ employment powerhouse, but before celebrating the thousands of vacancies being advertised, government should look beyond the headline numbers.
What kind of jobs are being created?
As reported by this paper yesterday, Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) data showed Iloilo province with 8,411 vacancies in August, the highest among areas monitored through the Public Employment Service Office system. Iloilo City followed with 7,852, while Ajuy, ILoilo registered an extraordinary 5,647 openings. Estancia, Concepcion and Oton towns also posted significant numbers.
Those numbers look impressive. They reinforce Iloilo’s reputation as Western Visayas’ principal employment hub. But dig deeper into the figures and the picture becomes more complicated.
The single biggest occupational demand in Western Visayas was for household service workers — 10,263 vacancies. That dwarfed the 3,655 openings for customer service representatives. Another 3,526 vacancies were specifically for domestic helpers.
There is dignity in every honest occupation, and domestic workers deserve the same respect and protection afforded to any other worker. The issue is not the dignity of these jobs.
The issue is what their overwhelming dominance says about the structure of the labor market. For a province and city increasingly presented as emerging centers of investment, business process outsourcing, commerce and development, Iloilo should aspire to an employment landscape increasingly dominated by skilled, productive and well-paying occupations.
A hiring boom cannot automatically be equated with economic progress.
Ten thousand vacancies paying barely enough for a worker to survive do not necessarily represent greater economic advancement than a smaller number of jobs capable of supporting families, building savings and creating a genuine middle class. Employment statistics become misleading when the number of jobs is celebrated without asking about wages, benefits, security, working conditions and opportunities for advancement.
There are encouraging signals in the DOLE figures. Western Visayas employers were looking for 877 staff nurses, 536 machinery mechanics and repairers, 516 electrical equipment installers and repairers, and 205 welders. Vacancies were also available for teachers, financial advisers, clerks and other workers. These are opportunities Iloilo should aggressively expand.
Government should stop treating job creation merely as a numbers game. Job fairs and vacancy announcements are useful, but they address only one end of a much larger problem. The more important task is shaping an economy capable of producing better-paying, higher-skilled and more secure employment.
Iloilo must become more ambitious in attracting industries that create high-value employment — technology, advanced business services, healthcare, manufacturing, engineering, logistics, renewable energy and other sectors capable of turning workers into skilled professionals with genuine career paths. People do not simply need work. They need work that allows them to live decently. They need jobs that offer security rather than perpetual uncertainty. They need opportunities that make leaving Iloilo or the Philippines a choice rather than an economic necessity.
This is where the next phase of Iloilo’s development must be judged. Buildings, investments and glowing employment statistics mean little if workers remain trapped in low wages and families continue struggling from paycheck to paycheck.
The true measure of an employment powerhouse is not how many jobs it can advertise. It is whether those jobs can lift workers and their families into a better future.
Iloilo has succeeded in creating demand for workers. Now it must create work worth staying for.
