Recent surveys conducted by the Department of Education (DepEd) showed that only 24% of employers and companies are willing to hire graduates of the K to 12 program or Senior High School (SHS) completers.
DepEd Undersecretary for Planning and Field Operations Jesus Mateo said in one his interviews that this survey was conducted to aim to welcome opportunities for DepEd to have a baseline data on the employer’s willingness to hire K to 12 graduates responding to the result of the survey that the online job portal JobStreet.com Philippines conducted.
However, 35% of companies who participated in the survey expressed their refusal to hire or accept K to 12 completers and implied that they are not yet ready to hire the program’s graduates while the other 41% of employers said that they are still on the process of evaluating if they would be open for consideration to hire K to 12 graduates with no definite time-frame.
According to the 2018 Fresh Graduate Report, the other 24% of employers who are willing to hire K to 12 graduates belongs to the industries of manufacturing, professional services, retail, machinery and equipment, and business process outsourcing or BPO companies, and other similar industries. The findings of the report is based on the data collected on JobStreet.com from October to December of 2017 and from the survey that was conducted in February year 2018 which involved 503 employers nationwide. Mateo noted that 24% is equivalent to 2 out of 10 companies and added that this result is good enough percent to take in K to 12 completers in entry level positions doing administrative and support work to technical and managerial levels. Other studies also showed that the readiness and openness of employers to accept Senior High School graduates revealed that 1 out of 5 companies are ready to hire a K to 12 completer completely opposite from the employer’s enthusiasm in accepting college level employees.