Jobs, jobs, and more jobs: A roadmap to end unemployment and underemployment

BY MANILA BULLETIN

Aug 17, 2023 01:40 AM

  

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Securing a job is the aspiration of the majority following years of formal education. A stable job not only sustains one’s family but instills dignity and pride to the employed. In a general picture, a country where its citizens are mostly employed is one where economic growth and communal peace can thrive.

However, not just any job will suffice. It must be stable, decent, and aligned with an individual's skills. It must also compensate the worker adequately commensurate with industry standards. The consequences of failing to meet these criteria are dire — the shadows of unemployment and underemployment loom large. 

Unemployment spawns social problems, and worse, unrest among the population; while underemployment stifles progress and innovation, forcing citizens into underpaid or low-skill positions. People have no choice but risk leaving their families behind for a sliver of a chance for a financially rewarding job in strange lands.

To address this situation, the President has given his approval to the proposed Labor and Employment Plan (LEP) 2023-2028. This strategy generally is designed to create quality employment, alleviate unemployment, and combat underemployment.  Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Secretary Bienvenido Laguesma confirmed this development after a sectoral meeting at Malacañang on Aug. 15, 2023.

The LEP has three priorities: maximizing productive, remunerative, freely chosen, quality, and sustainable job opportunities; ensuring respect for all rights at work, international commitments, and human rights; and, lastly, building an inclusive social protection for all. Laguesma noted that this plan is in line with the Eight-Point Socio-Economic Agenda of the President and the Philippine Development Plan 2023-2028.

One of the immediate outcomes of the LEP is the plan to produce at least three million jobs for skilled and technical workers, in coordination with the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH). These jobs are projected to be generated in the infrastructure sector for the administration’s “Build Better More” program. 

“Under the LEP, there will be a review to address the benefits and the compensation of the workers,” said Laguesma.

Meanwhile, DPWH Secretary Manuel Bonoan affirmed there are a number of big-ticket projects slated until 2028, and these are expected to produce more substantial jobs.

“Right now, we are implementing a total capital outlay budget of about ₱800 billion, and we are implementing 70,000 big and small contracts all over the country,” Bonoan said. “You can imagine the labor force that we need in terms of skilled and technical people. We are now generating over three million employment opportunities.”

With this plan, the government is urging Filipinos to consider the domestic job market before venturing abroad. Laguesma said that the LEP’s implementation is currently set for September this year, which will be formally unveiled during a national tripartite conference with an employment summit.

Having a roadmap, plan, or strategy is definitely a welcome move. But, how do we convince all the stakeholders to move in one direction? How do we truly break the chains of unemployment and underemployment that have shackled generations of Filipino workers? The hard part — and hard work — starts now.

Job Fair

Job Fair- On November 20, 2019 together with the celebration of Reformed Voluntary Surrenderers (RVS) Day, a Special Recruitment Program Jobs Fair was held at the Capitol Grounds of Compostela Valley. It was attended by representatives from TESDA, PNP DOLE, PESO and other governmet agencies concerned. Various recruitment agency both local and abroad joined the said Job-Fair. The Job-Fair was intended for all Reformed Voluntary Surrenderers to start anew.

Buy Filipino and create jobs

by Mario Casayuran and Reuters, Manila Bulletin

Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph G. Recto counseled the Duterte administration to tap local industries in modernizing the military before snapping up a $500-million loan being offered by China to modernize the Philippine military.

“The Philippines must stop relying on foreign suppliers to modernize the military equipment of its armed forces,” Recto said.

Recto gave this advice after Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said the country plans to utilize the loan to procure defense equipment from China.

China has offered to donate $14 million worth of military hardware to the Philippines, plus a soft loan for $500 million in Chinese arms.

But Lorenzana said they plan to use China’s money if the military’s five-year P100-billion ($2-billion) budget for modernization is insufficient.

“There is no need to borrow from China. We should tap our domestic industries for the equipment needed by our policemen and soldiers,” Recto urged.

He cited the existence of a vibrant local firearms industry that has been exporting its products for many decades now.

“Some of them were licensees of world’s leading gun makers,” he noted.

FILIPINO FIRST

There are many of them, from boat builders to vehicle manufacturers to firearm/ammunition makers who can step up to the plate once there are firm orders from the government, Recto pointed out.

“We should look inward and develop our own capability. It is cheaper to produce and maintain them locally, than to import them. That way, jobs are created for the Filipinos and the local industries are given the chance to grow,” he added.

The only equipment or parts we should import, according to Recto, are those which the country cannot produce locally.

“We should not bypass local industries which can provide parts or whole of the defense equipment being sought,” he said.

“Hindi naman pwede na mula helmet hanggang boots (We should not import everything from helmets to boots) imported. If some of the things can be made locally and the products are of the same price and quality as the ones bought abroad, then let us manufacture them here,” Recto said.

Military and police vehicles can be supplied by local car manufacturers. The President’s home province of Cebu , for one can build patrol ships.

“We have a world-class shipbuilding industry in Cebu, but our government agencies have yet to harness its potential as a major source of military and civilian boats,” he stressed.

“Buy local, create jobs. This should be the new mantra of the government,” he added.

CONDITIONS

The United States has provided its defense treaty ally with most of its major hardware, like ships, fighters, helicopters and small arms, but the Philippines is now looking to China and Russia for drones, planes, fast boats and rifles to fight communist rebels and Islamist militants behind an unrelenting spree of piracy and kidnapping, he said.

Lorenzana said acquiring weapons and equipment from the United States had become difficult because the process was slow and there were conditions tied to sales.

“That’s why we are discouraged from getting from them because of these conditions,” Lorenzana told reporters in Beijing.

“We need airplanes, we need drones, we need fast boats,” he said. “We need them in the south so that we can deter kidnappings and bring about development.”

Weapons procurements could also be complicated by bipartisan attempts by some US lawmakers to ban the transfer of arms to the Philippines that could be used in a war on drugs that has killed thousands of Filipinos, and has been condemned by Western governments.

At the sidelines of a Belt and Road summit in Beijing, Philippine President Duterte on Sunday met several Chinese state-owned corporations, including a defense contractor blacklisted by Washington for selling to Iran items that were banned under US laws.

NO DIFFERENCE

Duterte, who is working hard to strengthen ties with China has complained about the useless US “hand-me-down” merchandise given its treaty ally.

Lorenzana confirmed China’s Poly Group Corporation and Poly Technologies were among companies which called on President Duterte and the defense department is sending a technical team to look at the Chinese equipment.

Lorenzana said he signed a letter of intent with state-owned China Poly Group to buy military equipment from but no specific materiel had been decided yet.

“Yes, I signed a letter of intent with Poly Group. (However) there is no specific equipment or arms yet. We’ll let the services decide what they went to acquire from China,” Lorenzana added.

The defense chief assured there is no difference whether Western or China-made.

“The weapons are almost the same now. They are used the same way. Puede namang i-tailor made yung requirements natin (The materiel can be customized according to our requirements). Doctrine and training is peculiar to an Army so it won’t be affected,” Lorenzana said.

He is due to sign a defense agreement with his Russian counterpart next week for possible purchases of weapons and drones. The Philippines is also acquiring drones from Israel. (With reports from Hannah L. Torregoza and Francis T. Wakefield)