MANILA — Senator Joel Villanueva on Tuesday called on the government to address the job-skills mismatch in the country to prepare the workforce for the thousands of jobs to be generated this year under the administration’s Build, Build, Build program.
Villanueva, who chairs the Senate committee on labor, employment and human resources development, said the implementation of the Duterte administration’s ambitious infrastructure program makes it imperative for concerned government agencies to upgrade the skills of local workers and address the job-skills mismatch.
According to the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), the Build, Build, Build program will generate an average of 1.1 million jobs annually, mostly from the construction sector.
For this year alone, NEDA expects more than 820,000 jobs to be created given the number of infrastructure projects rolled out nationwide.
“It has been our consistent call on the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), Department of Education (DepEd), and Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) that there should be a strong academe-industry linkage and our workers should be skills-ready for the jobs projected to be created under the Build, Build, Build program,” Villanueva said.
“I think the DOLE should already be reporting on the progress of the programs addressing the job-skills mismatch and TESDA on the tech-voc trainings. The agencies should already be working on the identified hard-to-fill jobs, among others,” he added.
In view of this, the senator urged for the passage of Senate Bill No. 1431 that would democratize access to skills training to help more job-seeking individuals become successful in landing jobs that matched their skills.
The proposed Tulong Trabaho Act, which Villanueva authored, aims to make tech-voc accessible to all and ensure that the individuals are provided with the right skills set to obtain in-demand jobs.
It was already approved on third and final reading at the Senate in May last year.
Once enacted into law, Senate Bill 1431 seeks to institute a Philippine Labor Force Competencies Competitiveness Program and establish free access to technical and vocational training programs.
“The measure is industry-driven, which ensures that individuals meet the demands of industries and equip them with the right skills for the job. With this law, we can address the gap of unemployment in the country by providing free tech-voc training and improving the skills of Filipinos who chose not to pursue tertiary education,” the senator said.
“We hope that our counterpart in the House of Representatives will soon pass a similar measure, which will address job-skills mismatch and guarantee decent jobs for every Filipino,” Villanueva said. (Senate PR/PNA)
