The problem of career satisfaction and job mismatch

To earn a living, one must have a job. To feel that you are living, one must invest themselves in a career. That is why career is central to most people’s lives, it serves as their identity, that whenever they are asked, “ What do you do?” most would respond with a job title. According to (Hamm, 2008) job is basically a work for earning money its only objective is just to get the work done, it has only a minimal impact on a persons’ purposeful existence, while career is a sequence of conjoint work opportunities that greatly prioritizes gaining experiences, building connections, and to achieve their personal goals than just getting the work done. It is an occupation undertaken for a significant period of a person’s life and with opportunities for progress it ranges from those that necessitate broad educational training and professional readiness.

While career satisfaction refers to the extent ways in which an individual can be described as successful in his or her working life, that may vary and has been defined in so many ways. There are many factors to consider in declaring that one is truly satisfied with their careers, such as financial rewards, that provides satisfaction and excitement for the employees through salary incentives and bonuses. The environment or location of the work that give employees comfortable working place for more productive, and efficient accomplished tasks, and also the workers’ personal goals or purpose, that stipulates the employees’ opportunity for advancement which encourage the laborers to strive more in acquiring new skills.

But people tend to arrive at their chosen career in many different ways that may lead to career or job mismatch if not properly addressed. Job mismatch cases in our country are so prevalent among today’s workforce. There are many factors observed why the job mismatch issue remains controversial to this very day, some of it are, using connections in the workplace, wrong choice of college course, being too money driven, etc. Job mismatch can also have an effect in a person, specifically middle-aged workers in experiencing midlife crisis. Mid-life crisis is an occurrence experienced by people in their middle adulthood and pertains to an existential crisis that involves a person questioning their identity and influence to themselves and to others around them. In the corporate world in the Philippines, employment rates are significantly lower compared to its Asian neighbors, resulting in the uneven distribution of specialized jobs being open. Due to this, college graduates are forced to take other occupations that are not within their field of specialization. As employment problems still persist, flexibility in changing positions or employment are very narrow, hypothetically leading for a person to undertake the same occupation for several years.

The escalating job mismatch dilemma in the Philippines gave the researchers an idea and motivation to dig deeper about the underlying factors that affects career satisfaction of the middle – aged workers, concerning its effect on the workers’ performance and especially their mental health. As labor mismatch continues to grow in the Philippines, it is assumed that having a degree is not that needed anymore to land a job; thus, where career mismatch happens. Talent pools are greater than business demands; resulting to applicants to be underemployed. 19. 5 percent are registered underemployed according to the 2014 Labor Force Survey.

According to Philippine Statistics Authority, as of January 2018, Philippines has a 5. 3% unemployment rate and 18% underemployment rate. Compared to the statistics made in the same month last year, where the unemployment rate is 6. 6% and the underemployment rate is 18%, the underemployment rate of the country increased by 3%.

While Senator Villanueva authored and proposed the Senate Bill No. 1456, or the Philippine Qualifications Framework Act of 2017; to be the national policy, which describes the levels of educational qualifications and set the standards for qualification outcomes. This bill aspires to coordinate the education and training system by making its system to comply to qualifications and norm set of the Philippine Qualifications Framework – National Coordinating Council (PQF – NCC) that committed to assist the education and labor market to terminate the existing case of job – skill mismatch.

Midlife adults undergo a re-evaluation of their merits and achievements as a reassessment of their professional standing. This could be interlinked with Erik Erikson’s Psychodynamic Theory, which states that midlife adults fall under the stage, Generativity vs. Stagnation, wherein generativity is when one contributes to positive changes in their community, while stagnation is when midlife adults fail to find ways of contributing positively.

Thus, working adults contribute to society through their careers, and to know if they contributed well to others means they are “ taking a mark” and helping in improving the wellbeing of others, most especially the younger generations. However, due to the high rate of unemployment in the Philippines, not all graduates/employees were able to be employed to their occupational inclinations. That clearly proves that employment is a big issue in midlife, and job mismatch or underemployment is a good basis in measuring if it has an effect in middle-aged workers’ career satisfaction. And that underemployed workers also find a loss in their economic needs as consequence.