The Civil Service Commission (CSC) told the House appropriations committee during its budget deliberations on Tuesday, August 27, that there are 203,079 vacant positions in government.
CSC Chairperson Karlo Nograles said human resources departments of some government agencies take time before they publish the vacancies, and acknowledged that it raises the need to work on “professionalizing” and “increasing the maturity level” of HR offices.
Lulu Vispo, acting assistant director at the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), also pointed to the struggles that agencies face in filling up the positions due to qualification requirements and low salary offered.
The CSC said it has a pending proposal to the National Economic and Development Authority Board to finance a digital platform that will allow the commission and the DBM to immediately see the vacancies in different government agencies.
“It’s an ambitious project, but I think if it is successful, then it will help us address this issue of several vacancies in government. Monitoring of vacancies in agencies will be in real time,” Nograles explained. “The setup right now is…we get the number of vacancies every six months only.”
