More professionals upskilling in AI to attract employers

by Almira Louise S. Martinez, Reporter

LinkedIn, a professional networking platform with 16 million members in the Philippines, said more users are adding artificial intelligence-related (AI) skills to their profiles to attract employers.

“(There is a) 21x increase in the number of people adding AI skills in the platform,” LinkedIn Head of Talent Solutions for the Philippines Bhavana Chauhan told reporters at the Department of Education (DepEd) and LinkedIn partnership launch.

Ms. Chauhan added that the range of AI-related skills their users added varies based on the industries they belong to.

“If you are an AI specialist, technical coder, it will be largely on learning models, LLM, machine learning, and AI algorithms,” she said

Meanwhile, the LinkedIn executive said people who do not have a technical role focused more on learning the ethical and responsible use of AI. “It’s more of AI literacy skills and not so much of the advanced skills.”

Based on a survey with C-suite executives, Ms. Chauhan noted that 80% prefer people with AI skills and capabilities more than a candidate with relevant experience. In line with this, she expects all jobs in the future, even professions outside the technology industry, to have AI embedded in them.

“What I expect (to) happen is everybody’s job will have a little bit of AI built in,” she said.

Upskilling public school teachers

The Work Change report by LinkedIn revealed that 10% of the workers hired in 2024 hold job titles that did not exist in 2000 including AI Engineer, Data Scientist, Sustainability Manager, Social Media Manager, and Customer Success Manager.

The report added that through the acceleration of AI, 70% of the skills required to do a job in the Philippines will change by 2030.

To help the education sector cope with the rapid changes and growing demands for AI, DepEd aims to help 200,000 public school teachers through LinkedIn Learning courses. These learning courses target the development of critical competencies of Filipino educators in areas including digitalization accelerated by AI.

DepEd has also partnered with Google to equip 800,000 teachers and 200,000 non-teaching personnel with Google Workspace for Education licenses that can help in preparing lesson plans and grading papers using AI tools.

DepEd Sec. Sonny Angara | photo by Almira Louise S. Martinez

“The use of AI will be mandatory, it will be like the ability to use a computer, maybe even more,” Education Secretary Juan Edgardo “Sonny” M. Angara told reporters.

“Ang gusto natin lahat ng teachers natin can be AI-savvy na, [We want all of our teachers to become AI-savvy],” he added.