AI threatens PH jobs, expert says

THE Philippines risks a growing mismatch between the jobs it has been preparing workers for and those most vulnerable to artificial intelligence, an international development expert warned. Elizabeth King, a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said the country has been investing heavily in training workers for occupations that are increasingly exposed to technological change, particularly clerical support jobs. “The jobs that are most vulnerable to artificial intelligence are exactly the jobs we have been investing in, which [are] clerical support jobs,” King said at the 12th Annual Public Policy Conference of the Philippine Institute for Development Studies on Sept. 17. King said the challenge is compounded by unequal access to technology and the country's limited capacity to produce workers with the foundational cognitive skills needed to complement AI. Nearly 19 million Filipinos, or about 17 percent of the population, cannot afford a minimum internet package, according to figures cited by King. AI adoption also varies substantially across regions, potentially widening inequalities in access to technology and employment opportunities, she said. King said preparing the workforce for an AI-driven economy should begin well before young people enter the labor market, pointing to the importance of investments in nutrition, health and cognitive development during the first 1,000 days of life. “Stunting delays entry to school. It hurts achievement in school, completion [of] basic education, and so forth and so on,” she said. These early investments could strengthen the capabilities of children who are expected to enter the workforce around 2040, King said. The AI challenge is also linked to the country's longstanding difficulty in retaining skilled workers and generating enough domestic demand for their skills, University of the Philippines School of Economics Associate Professor Renato Reside Jr. said. Reside said the Philippines would likely continue to rely on overseas workers and remittances in the near term, but reducing that dependence would require changes in the domestic economy. “I think it is time for the Philippines to take a hard look at, as Dr. King would say, implementation,” Reside said. He called for the government to shift spending from what he described as wasteful uses toward productive investments that could increase productivity, wages and competitiveness. Reside identified manufacturing, the electric-vehicle industry and greater domestic processing of mineral resources as areas where the country could develop stronger economic activity and create demand for skilled workers. Education policy also needs to respond more closely to labor-market conditions, Philippine Business for Education Executive Director Hanibal Camua said. Camua called for further discussion of decentralizing education decision-making, noting the scale of the country's basic education system, which includes about 47,000 public schools. “We need to discuss and further flesh out that issue on the decentralization of education,” he said. Greater local capacity could allow schools and education authorities to respond more effectively to differences in local conditions, labor-market requirements and community needs, Camua said. Asian Development Bank Director Eisuke Tajima said social sector investments should likewise be viewed as part of the country's economic growth strategy rather than q11q separately from economic policy. “The social sector policy and operation must be viewed as an economic growth strategy, part of it,” Tajima said. He called for greater coordination between education, health and economic policies, saying the country needs healthy workers and an education system that responds to the demand in the private sector. Shift Consulting President and Asian Institute of Management adjunct faculty member Richard Anthony Cruz described the challenge as a matter of converting human-capital investments into actual economic outcomes. “You invest the capital, but did it really result in the outcome that we're looking for?” Cruz said. He called for government, industry associations and the private sector to work together in identifying specific areas where the Philippines can build competitive advantages. Cruz also said improving the country's performance in international assessments such as the Programme for International Student Assessment should be treated as a national effort rather than left solely to the Department of Education.