MANILA – The Asian Development Bank (ADB) approved on Thursday a USD500 million policy-based loan to help the Philippine government expand labor market programs.
In a statement, the ADB said the Business and Employment Recovery Program-Subprogram 2 will help the government to pursue reforms to equip the country's labor force with the skills required to meet evolving industry needs.
The program also aims to increase women’s participation in the workforce via technical and vocational education and training (TVET) and provide better access to livelihood and employment opportunities through government job facilitation programs.
Under the program, the government is targeting to increase formal employment in the private sector by an average of 600,000 to 700,000 jobs per year, with the share of private sector jobs to total employment rising to 51 percent against 49 percent in 2019.
The program will also provide skills training to 5,000 workers, including those displaced during the pandemic, through private sector-led programs such as the SkillsUpNet Philippines or similar workplace skills training program piloted by the government with ADB support.
The government also wants to raise the number of job placements through public employment service offices in local government units (LGUs) across the country by 120,000 annually and expand the number of LGUs implementing the JobStart Philippines skills training program for the youth not in education, employment, or training.
“While job recovery in the Philippines has been encouraging in the post-Covid-19 period, the quality of jobs remains a critical concern, with many workers still facing challenges such as underemployment, informality, and limited access to decent work opportunities,” ADB Country Director for the Philippines Pavit Ramachandran said.
“This new program addresses that need and will help in preparing Filipino workers for higher-skilled jobs such as in analytics and artificial intelligence, software development and security, and business process management —industries where Filipinos have a proven potential to excel,” he added. (PNA)
