Key government agencies headed by the Department of Labor and Employment and leading business groups have joined forces to create one million jobs this year following President Rodrigo R. Duterte’s signing of an executive order adopting the National Employment Recovery Strategy (NERS) and forming a task force to oversee its implementation.
NERS is an employment recovery plan from 2021 to 2022 that aims to create a policy environment that encourages the generation and improved access to employment, livelihood, and training opportunities; improve employability, wellness, and productivity of workers; and provide support to existing and emerging businesses to preserve and create employment.
In a partnership project called Reform, Rebound, Recover: One Million Jobs for 2021, Sec. Silvestre Bello III, along with Employers’ Confederation of the Philippines Chair Edgardo G. Lacson, will sign a commitment to immediately source Filipino workers for deployment in the construction, manufacturing (particularly semiconductors and electronics), tourism and hospitality, and export industries.
“This project synchronizes with safe and gradual reopening of the economy and addresses the impact of the prolonged community quarantine to thousands of smaller enterprises and millions of Filipinos workers,” Bello said.
Bello and Lacson will be joined in the jobs creation project by Trade and Industry Sec. Ramon M. Lopez, Hotel and Restaurant Association of the Philippines President Eugene T. Yap, Higher Education Commission Chair J. Prospero E. de Vera III, Philippine Constructors’ Association President Wilfredo L. Decena, Interior and Local Government Sec. Eduardo M. Año, and Philippine Hotel Owners Association President Arthur M. Lopez.
Other agency heads and private sector leaders who will also carry out the jobs creation plan are Transportation Sec. Arthur P. Tugade, Semiconductor and Electronics Industries in the Philippines, Inc. President Danilo C. Lachica, Tourism Sec. Bernadette Romulo-Puyat, Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Benedicto V. Yujuico, Technical Education and Skills Development Authority Sec. Isidro S. Lapeña, and Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc. President Sergio Ortiz-Luis, Jr.
Under the Reform, Rebound, Recover: One Million Jobs for 2021, the business/employers sector shall primarily identify job vacancies from its member companies and find jobs for the qualified but unemployed jobseekers.
Through the NERS Task Force, the government sector will secure vaccination for workers who qualify for the partnership project. Among others, it will also provide a profile of workers who can be referred to existing job vacancies, offer transportation services to workers who will get their vaccination jabs, and organize job caravans. – Press release
April 16, 2024
