The country has mapped out skills frameworks that are cross-sectoral in application, including human capital development, as it works to reskill its workforce and avoid mismatch between skills and jobs.

Trade Undersecretary Rafaelita Aldaba said the Philippine Skills Framework (PSF) human capital development is a tool that can be used by human resources practitioners, business owners, educators and their students, labor associations, and career-driven Filipinos.

Aldaba said it can serve as a reference document to plan one’s career in human resources (HR), develop in school or training curricula, and HR department planning strategy and operations development.

“Particularly for HR practitioners, the PSF human capital development is developed so they can become better drivers in helping workers grow and achieve milestones in their respective careers thereby contributing towards the higher productivity of their respective organizations,” she said during the recent launch of the PSF for human capital development version 1.0.

Aldaba said the SPF initiative is an inter-agency effort that involves the development of sectors-specific skills frameworks that will guide the country’s workers in enhancing their skills for particular job roles.

“It is our government’s response to the need to reskill our workforce and avoid potential jobs skills mismatch towards increasing and sustaining the country’s industrial competitiveness under the Fourth Industrial Revolution and move us closer to our goal of becoming an industrialized nation,” she added.

Nelly Nita Dillera, PSF initiative project director and executive director of the Philippine Trade Training Center-Global MSME (micro, small and medium enterprises) Academy, said PSF involves development of skills documents that are “very useful whether you are a manager, you are a human resource manager, you are in the workforce, training institution, you are in the government, private sector, even the unions.”

Dillera said skills documents include career pathways and tracks, occupations and job roles, skills and competencies functional enabling, and training programs for skills upgrading and mastery.

“When we talk about functional, these are actually what we connect to technical skills and competencies and when we talk about an enabling skills and competencies, these are actually what TESDA (Technical Education and Skills Development Authority) or the DepEd (Department of Education) is referring to as the 21st skills or these are actually the core skills so that’s also what you will be seeing as part of the (skills) documents,” she said.

Dillera added sector priorities are supply chain and logistics, game development, animation, tourism, construction, manufacturing, health and wellness, and food, agriculture and fishery.

Aside from formulating PSF specific to these sectors, Aldaba said workers also need to enhance their skills that are critical to have regardless of the industry or focus of business.