More firms open to hiring K-12 grads, but most still prefer college degree-holders

MANILA, Philippines — More businesses in the Philippines are now willing to hire senior high school graduates than before, but preference for college diploma-holders remains overwhelming, according to a new study by a private sector-led education advocacy group. 

The Philippine Business for Education (PBed) also found based on their survey of nearly 300 companies nationwide that most job opportunities available to K to 12 graduates remain limited to service, sales and clerical support roles.

Published on July 10, the PBEd study captures the employment and labor situation awaiting the first cohort of full-fledged K to 12 students who graduated this year. 

The study also comes six years after PBEd's 2018 pilot study on the first batch of senior high graduates, the findings of which have been cited as evidence of high school graduates' poor employability in the House of Representatives' ongoing deliberations on amendments to the K to 12 law. 

PBEd's latest study shows that four out of five firms are willing to hire senior high school graduates, up from the results of the 2018 study where only three out of five expressed openness to the idea. 

Meanwhile, two out of five firms surveyed said they had established policies for the equitable hiring of senior high school graduates, higher than the one out of five in 2018.

Most or 86% of the survey respondents were micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), while large companies tallied to around 14%. PBEd said it used purposive sampling "since the target respondents were difficult to recruit for the study."

Almost half of the firms surveyed said they currently hire K to 12 graduates, and a higher percentage of large firms (63%) hired senior high school graduates than MSMEs (43%).

Firms that had policies in place for the equitable hiring of senior high school graduates reported implementing the following strategies: more than half said they enforced competency-based hiring and included disclaimers in job advertisements that the role does not require a college degree (55%), while around half said they opened college graduate employment to non-college graduates (52%).

While nearly half of all firms surveyed said they had