THE Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECoP) said that it will revive its Job Opportunities Building Skills (J.O.B.S.) program this year with the goal of including the informal sector.
“That is something that we will pursue this year, and we have been going around together with the Philippine Chamber of Commerce,” ECoP President Sergio Ortiz-Luis, Jr. said at a ceremony marking ECoP’s 50th year Tuesday.
According to Mr. Ortiz-Luis, the J.O.B.S. program was suspended with the change in administration.
“It was revived again through the initiative of the advisers of President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. in the Private Sector Advisory Council and other industry groups,” he said.
Asked for a job generation target, he said, “We have not set a number. If you remember in 2021, we set a 1 million job target. We didn’t meet it at the end of the year because of the spike in COVID, but we reached the 1 million job mark by March 2022,” he added.
“What we would like to be able to do is to create enough jobs to be able to accommodate (the informal sector),” he added.
He said that many services companies are already tapping informal workers.
“What we are doing is matching. We will talk to the companies that are willing to do that,” he added.
The revived program will also target K-12 graduates who he said are experiencing difficulty finding jobs companies tend to hire experienced workers or those who have completed higher education.
For its 50th anniversary, ECoP will also be launching an online job fair platform known as the Employment Connect Opportunities, ECoP Deputy Director General Jelermina Abigail Roxas-Gorospe said.
For the platform, she said ECoP will be working with various institutions, both private and government.
“For the government, of course, we will be working with the Department of Labor and Employment and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority,” she added.
ECoP’s other programs include its environment, social, and governance program and artificial intelligence chatbot on labor and employment issues. — Justine Irish D. Tabile