The government will create one million jobs this year under the National Employment Recovery Strategy (NERS) to help the economy move forward amid the pandemic, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III.
Bello said under Executive Order No. 140, an inter-agency task force will oversee the implementation of the NERS agenda, which will entail a budget of about P1.14 trillion.
He described it as a “bold, big step toward job recovery” as millions of Filipinos lost their jobs or found themselves underemployed due to the health crisis and the ensuing lockdowns.
Continuous retooling, upskilling
Bello said the Labor department will do its best in developing a holistic employment recovery plan along with the Department of Trade and Industry and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority as NERS Task Force co-chairs.
He pushed for the continuous retooling and upskilling of workers to keep up with the changing global work landscape.
“Let us upskill our workers so they can compete in any new normal,” he said, citing possible job displacements as digital technologies take over manual labor.
Private sector partnership
Labor Assistant Secretary Dominique Tutay, meanwhile, said a partnership project between the government and the private sector has been set in motion to support the NERS plan.
Bello and Employers’ Confederation of the Philippines Chairman Edgardo Lacson are scheduled to sign today Wednesday a partnership project called Reform, Rebound, Recover: One Million Jobs for 2021.
The initiative, Tutay said, aims to immediately source Filipino talents for deployment in the construction, semiconductors and electronics manufacturing, tourism and hospitality, and export industries.
The NERS’ 8-point employment recovery agenda include providing additional wage subsidy for private sector workers, retooling and upskilling of the Filipino workforce, and extending assistance to businesses and employers, among others.