In line with the transition to the digital world, it is important to determine if there is an alignment between the demand for and supply of Data Science and Analytics (DSA) workforce. In a nutshell, analytics progresses data along the value chain as it transforms data to information to insight to imperatives with the purpose of delivering the right decision support to the right people and digital processes at the right time for the good.

 

DSA professional profiles includes: (1) data steward; (2) data engineer; (3) data scientist; and (4) functional analyst. The data steward is in-charge of the organization’s data governance process to ensure that data assets provide the organization with high-quality data. The data engineer takes care of infrastructures including applications that extract, transform, and load data from transactional systems to centralized data repositories. The data scientist leverages statistics techniques and creates analytical models to derive new insights from quantitative and qualitative data. And lastly, the functional analyst utilizes data and leverages on derived insights to help organizations make better decisions on a specific functional domain. The abovementioned categories specialize on specific skills set and their level of proficiency also depends on which DSA professional profile they are categorized.

 

There are 10 DSA-related undergraduate programs that are offered by various schools across the Philippines: (1) Computer Science; (2) Business Administration; (3) Statistics; (4) Applied Math/Math; (5) Information Technology; (6) Information Science; (7) Economics; (8) Physics/Applied Physics; (9) Industrial Engineering; and (10) Civil Engineering. These primarily instill 21st century skills to students mainly in the field of critical thinking, planning and organizing, problem solving, decision making, re-skilling, and even job collaboration. Currently, these DSA competencies are highly sought after by employers belonging to the information and communications sector, manufacturing sector, and professional, scientific and technical sectors. They comprise 0.4% (174,000) of the total labor force; 42% of them works for IT-BPO companies.

 

In the current context, there is a misalignment between the demand for and supply of DSA workforce. By taking into consideration the high volume of demand, there arises the need to improve the output on the supply side. More and more students must be encouraged to specialize on DSA-related programs for it will be an advantageous stance when they enter the workforce. The resource speaker, Dr. Brenda A. Quismorio, made 2 recommendations: have a common definition or framework for DSA and strengthen industry-academe-government linkages.

 

The webinar was spearheaded by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies on 24 June 2020. ECOP was represented by Advocacy and Research Assistant Jhoyzel Nacisvalencia.

 

 

 

 

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