The hospitality sector both locally and abroad has an insatiable hunger for skilled staff, and employers in the Philippines are grappling with the worsening manpower shortage.
Lured with better prospects, Filipinos who are qualified in the hospitality segment are increasingly heading abroad – and industry stakeholders are feeling the pinch especially as more hotels launch in the Philippines.
“It’s pointless to fight the free market. If there’s a job waiting for these people elsewhere, they will go,” lamented Manny Gonzalez, resident shareholder of Plantation Bay Resort and Spa in Mactan, Cebu.
Plantation Bay Resort and Spa prides itself on having a good training and staff retention programme, which includes handsome bonuses during the twice-yearly performance review, as well as trainings abroad at Cornell University. But while these programmes have led to a high retention rate and staff appreciation, it has also resulted in Plantation Bay staff getting poached by cruise ships and hotels abroad.
Jerome de la Fuente, general manager of Limketkai Luxe Hotel in Cagayan de Oro City, has the same experience. He pointed out that his well-trained staff keeps getting poached abroad, although the staff shortage was felt more acutely in areas outside major tourist destinations where there’s not enough training or a pool of qualified staff.
The lack of qualified staff is a perennial concern for Eugene Tamesis, director of sales and marketing at Raffles and Fairmont Makati.
“Shortage means that there is demand, (though it may) not necessarily be abroad. There has been a hotel boom in the country since 2012, when integrated resorts were being built. (For example), Okada Manila alone needed 6,000 employees,” Tamesis pointed out.
He believes that it’s increasingly more difficult to get qualified staff, but their exposure abroad will make them better in what they do – if they return.
Aileen Clemente, vice president of the Tourism Congress of the Philippines (TCP), sees merit in overseas stints for Filipino workers. “They can get experiences abroad and bring these best practices back,” she said.
But one reason why hospitality workers continue to head abroad is due to “a lack of awareness of the job opportunities available in the country”, she remarked.
As such, TCP will hold job fairs around the country to build up a database of prospective employees to match with employers.
Similarly, the Tourism Industry Board Foundation will look at partnering educational institutions to find a balance in education, training, policies and regulations as one of the major first initiatives to address the dearth of qualified hospitality staff in the country.
Clemente concluded: “The Philippines is well known as a labour supply country. But this doesn’t prevent us from also getting labour elsewhere as tourism continues to flourish in the country.”
This article was first published in TTG Asia March 2017 issue. To read more, please view our digital edition or click here to subscribe.
