President Marcos on Thursday appealed to the labor sector to ensure the efficient implementation of the Trabaho Para sa Bayan (TPB) plan, which will help generate at least 3 million new jobs by 2028.
Speaking at the first-ever 2024 National Employment Summit in Manila, Mr. Marcos said the TPB is a 10-year roadmap that will serve as the national guide toward greater employment generation and recovery.
The President also gave assurances that the administration is dedicated to addressing underemployment and unemployment.
“The TPB Plan will be one of the driving forces to help create at least three million new jobs by the year 2028,” Marcos said.
The President noted that beyond generating employment, the government is also seeking to create “quality jobs, with special emphasis on ensuring workers’ welfare, empowerment, competitiveness, and security in all sectors of our labor sector.”
This is why, according to Mr. Marcos, the government is working doubly hard to address job-skills mismatch, underemployment, and unemployment through the reforms in the basic education curriculum, the embedding of TVET or Technical and Vocational Education and Training in the Senior High School curriculum, and the implementation of employment facilitation initiatives.
Most of the labor statistics improved from April 2023 to 2024, according to the Labor Force Survey as of June 6 this year, with the employment rate slightly up from 95.50 percent to 96 percent, and employed individuals increasing from 48.06 million to 48.46 million.
The country’s unemployment rate also decreased from 4.5 percent to 4 percent.
However, the Labor Force Survey showed the underemployed individuals increased from 12.90 percent to 14.60 percent, while the labor force participation rate rose from 64.10 percent to 65.10 percent.
“This is why the government is working doubly hard to address the proverbial problems that we have always faced – job-skills mismatch, underemployment, [and] unemployment through the reforms in our basic education curriculum, the embedding of TVET in the Senior High School curriculum, and the implementation of employment facilitation initiatives,” Mr. Marcos added.