Developing Socioemotional Skills for the Philippines' Labor Market

Abstract

While the Philippines has achieved remarkable progress in raising the education level of its labor force, the standard proxy for educational attainment, years of formal schooling, is increasingly inadequate as a measure of workforce skills. About one-third of employer’s report being unable to fill vacancies due a lack of applicants with the requisite skills. Most of these ‘missing skills’ are not forms of academic knowledge or technical acumen, but rather socioemotional skills,’ also known as ‘non-cognitive skills’, ‘soft skills’ or ‘behavioral skills.’ Emerging international evidence suggests that socioemotional skills are increasingly crucial to the types of jobs being created by the global economy. Whereas in the past, literacy, numeracy, and various forms of administrative and technical know-how drove gains in worker productivity, structural economic transformation is creating a burgeoning demand for jobs that require skills related to individual behavior, personality, attitude, and mindset. However, governments and educational institutions in many countries, including the Philippines, are only beginning to fully recognize the importance of socio-emotional skills and develop strategies to foster their development. The following study presents new evidence from employer and household surveys on the role of socioemotional skills, as well as more traditional cognitive and technical skills, in the Philippine labor market. The Philippines is still at an early stage in terms of its ability to measure and develop socioemotional skills. Studies suggest that primary school is the optimal age for shaping socioemotional skills, but the elementary education curriculum devotes limited resources to their development. Schools continue to be judged solely by students’ performance in cognitive achievement tests, but no on soft-skills competences, and teachers are not appropriately trained to foster the development of them. Developing those should be a priority. Finally, interventions targeting workers entering the labor force can also effectively bolster their socioemotional skills, complementing effects to improve labor-market information and vocational counseling.