BACOLOD City – The Bacolod-Negros Occidental Federation for Information and Communications Technology (BNEFIT) is pushing for more Negrenses to find a niche in digital careers amid the expansion of the industry workforce.
BNEFIT executive director Jocelle Batapa-Sigue said the future of the workforce will now include freelancers, especially in digital jobs.
The concept of freelancing involves those in user experience (UX), English as a Second Language (ESL), content writing, virtual assistance, and digital marketing, among others.
“Freelancers before are seen as not legitimate, but looking at the future of the workforce, it now includes joint ventures, business process outsourcing (BPO) facilities, contractors, and freelancers,” she said.
Batapa-Sigue said since robots will also soon become part of the workforce, they are encouraging schools to enhance the students’ skills in working with machines.
Human-machine interactions should be part of skill-building, she added.
Batapa-Sigue, who also sits as vice president of the National Confederation of ICT in the Philippines, said the BNEFIT will join the freelancers’ caravan dubbed Digital Careers Expo as part of the effort to promote digital careers.
She said as a mentor of several ICT councils in the country, she conceptualized the first Philippine freelancers’ caravan.
This year, the caravan will be held in the cities of Iligan, Tarlac, and Bacolod.
For Bacolod, the expo will be held in September with a sharing of resource speakers. For instance, those from Iligan will go to Bacolod and Tarlac and vice versa.
“The concept really aims to reach out, especially to the young people, and tell them that four or six years from now, when they graduate from college, it is going to be a different world,” Batapa-Sigue said.
“Our closest and most concrete marketing strategy now is really to build this digital career expo,” she added. (PNA)
