Employers said they will relaunch a new jobs generation program that will focus on more active labor market interventions, including a digital platform that will match the skills of workers and industry demand both from formal and non-formal sectors, starting next year.
Sergio Ortiz-Luis Jr., president of the Employers Conferederation of the Philippines (ECOP), said that aside from skills matching, ECOP will also provide training of workers for the participating organizations, including workers from the informal sector. They will also schedule job fairs next year.
“This is not a one-way job offer, but ECOP will produce a digital platform which will be matching skills and jobs requirements by businesses on a per sector basis. We are actually doing that in cooperation with the Department of Trade and Industry,” he said.
Dubbed “Project Jobs”, Ortiz-Luis said the new program will fast track the creation of more jobs in the country. He also noted that employment is improving.
“Hopefully, we can create a million jobs after a few months,” he said adding that the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) and Philippine Exporters Confederation (Philexport) are also spearheading the project.
The SM Group, the country’s leading conglomerate, volunteered to join in the project, he said. Other participants include industry associations such as Semiconductor and Electronics Industries Foundation of the Philippines Inc., IT Business Process Association of the Philippines, mining, tourism, construction, and manufacturing groups.
Ortiz-Luis explained that one major difference in Project Jobs from the previous “A Million Jobs” program in 2022 is that the new project will integrate even jobs from the informal sector like workers in the agriculture sector.
“The A Million Jobs last year was mostly because we were just getting out of the pandemic, but now this is more of incremental jobs and creating additional jobs and we’re targeting even the informal sector to give them regular jobs,” he said.
On the creation of a virtual job and career fair platform, this aims to facilitate jobs, skills mapping and matching, and a one stop-shop for pre-employment requirements.
ECOP said that the DOLE already has a PhilJobNet but its accessibility and architecture need enhancement. The envisioned virtual job and career fair platform could be linked if not provide the “missing” components of the PhilJobNet.
The program also aims develop a tool to monitor the number of jobs created in key employment generations and ensure that they will be deployed in the virtual job and career platform.
Business organizations, through the ECOP and the PCCI will be mobilized to ensure that their constituents in the business community will, on a regular basis, provide the job vacancies and feedback about the status of job applications.
Also the academe, institutions, and technical vocational institutions will be requested provide the profiles of their graduates to ensure matching with the requirements of the labor market.
The objective is to improve the labor market information system to address the jobs-skills mismatch which remains a big problem in the country.
The program also seeks to provide a 21st century skills training will be provided to fresh graduates as well as to new entrants t the labor force.
Also, a referral system administered by ECOP, PCCI, and Philexport where companies, especially the micro, small, and medium enterprises could seek assistance to reskill and upskills their workers will be established.
Awareness sessions, workshops, and conferences will be spearheaded to discuss, popularize, and operationalize enterprise-based training, recognition of prior learning, micro-credentialing, and the role of the private sector in skills assessments under the lead of ECOP and PCCI.
The employers will hold basic occupational safety and health training, which is a mandatory requirement for all companies under the new Occupational Safety and Health Act for new entrants in the labor market.