America’s Record High 5.8 Million Job Openings Could Benefit the Philippines

The United States had a record high of 5.8 million job openings last July, according to the Labor Department. That’s much more than the previous high — 5.4 million — from last May, and the highest figure since the government began counting job openings in 2000

The spike of job openings however represents a mix of good and bad news – but good news for Filipinos.

Bob openings also mean some employers can’t find the right people to hire. Too many job openings represent a problem: The job skills gap in America, experts say.

For years, experts have warned that Americans don’t have the skills required for new job fields, especially in engineering, technical and science-related jobs.

This is the reason why much of these jobs will probably go to foreign workers, especially the Philippines, which has a large inventory of skilled workers, experts say.

“It’s definitely a concern, and it should be a concern for anyone who cares about the future of U.S. workers,” says Chris Tilly, an economics professor at U.C.L.A.

Leaders of the Philippine outsourcing industry said Monday they expect a big increase in business as the result of a new, highly detailed medical diagnosis coding system adopted by the U.S. for insurance claims.

The Philippines is the world’s leader in international call center services. Its information technology and outsourced services industry is expected to employ 1.3 million people by 2016, when annual earnings are seen to reach $25 billion. The industry has been growing 15-18 percent yearly, earning $18.9 billion last year.

Dan Reyes, chairman of the IT & Business Process Association of the Philippines, said the new U.S. coding system will open up more processing jobs and the Philippines stands to gain because of its large pool of graduates in medical-related fields.

Earnings have jumped 30 percent a year for the Philippine sector providing medical billing and other services to U.S. companies, making it the fastest growing of outsourced services, said Jose Mari Mercado, the association’s president and CEO. It is followed by information technology, finance and accounting, and contact center operations.

Under the new system, the roughly 14,000 codes used by U.S. health providers to represent diagnoses have been expanded to about 68,000 codes to capture more details of a patient’s chart.

Not only the Philippines’ BPO industry would benefit the sudden increase of jobs in US, but also the Filipinos and other foreign nationals who are skilled and fit to most of the jobs.

Source: CNN, The Salt Lake Tribune

 

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