DOLE Tags Agriculture as Bikol's Key Employment Generator

LEGAZPI CITY, Aug. 13 - Agribusiness has topped the list of growing industries in Bikol that would serve as Key Employment Generators (KEGS) in the next 10 years, according to the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) regional office here.

A nationwide study called Project Jobs Fit (PJF) recently completed by the DOLE has actually identified a broad volume of job opportunities but listed only 108 in-demand yet hard-to-fill occupations across all of the economy's KEGS and emerging industries until 2010, Alvin Villamor, DOLE's regional director said over the week.

With agribusiness topping the list in Bikol and in all the other agricultural regions of the country, the industry needs agricultural economist; aqua-culturist; coconut, fruit, vegetable and root crop farmers; entomologists; fisherman; horticulturists; plant mechanic; rice thresher operator-mechanics; veterinarians; and plant pathologists, among others, Villamor said.

Other industry sectors having the potential of absorbing the greatest number of the local workforce in the next 10 years, he said are cyberservices, health and wellness, hotel, restaurant and tourism, mining, construction, banking and finance, manufacturing, ownership dwellings and real estate, transport and logistics, wholesale and retail trade.

For cyberservices, the demand is for call center agents; nurses, herbologists, opticians and optometrists for health, wellness and medical tourism; front office agents, bakers, food servers and handlers, food and beverage service attendants, waiters, bartenders, room attendants, other housekeeping services, reservations officers and other frontline occupations and tour guides.

Mining occupations for mining engineers, geologists, laboratory technicians, heavy equipment operators, machine operators and miners would also be needed while the construction sector would require more laborers, fabricators, pipe fitters, foremen, masons and welders, Villamor said.

The banking and finance sector on the other hand would be hiring additional and new finance and accounting managers, operations managers and tellers; manufacturing-electrical technicians, food technologists, machine operators and sewers; ownership dwellings, real/retirement estate- real estate brokers, marketers, building managers, construction managers and workers.

The transport and logistics sectors would need checkers, maintenance mechanics and stewards /stewardess while the wholesale and retail would take in merchandisers, buyers, sales personnel, promos, and so on, and so forth, the DOLE regional head said.

PJF also identified the need to buttress the four emerging industries expected to reinforce employment opportunities in the next 10 years, namely creative industries, diversified or strategic farming and fishing, power and utilities and renewable energy, Villamor said.