Gov’t continuously finding ways to improve employment, vows Palace

The administration is “continuously finding ways” in order to address the joblessness in the country, the Malacañang said on Sunday.

“The Palace is seriously looking at the Third Quarter 2018 survey conducted by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) showing adult joblessness at 22% and is continuously finding ways to improve the local employment situation,” Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said in a statement.

Panelo was reacting to the recent survey of the SWS that showed that the number of jobless adults in the country had ballooned to 9.8 million in the third quarter of 2018.

This, according to the SWS, is 2.3 percent higher compared from the second quarter’s result that only tallied to 8.6 million adults.

READ: Jobless adult Filipinos reach 9.8 million in Q3 of 2018

One of the measures of the government to solve the joblessness in the country is the Ease of Doing Business Act that was recently signed by President Rodrigo Duterte, Panelo noted.

The Ease of Doing Business Act or  Republic Act No. 11032 aims to “streamline business processes and reduce processing time in all government agencies to make the country more conducive to investments thereby creating more and better jobs for our people.”

Panelo also noted that the government is developing human resources, citing the designation of Isidro Lapeña as the new Director-General of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA).

“We are confident that he can contribute in our employment targets by improving industry-relevant competencies of our youth, especially unutilized, unemployed, and underemployed school dropouts, and increase their opportunities for work experience through skills training,” Panelo said.

Duterte reassigned Lapeña to TESDA amid the controversy in the Bureau of Customs, which he headed prior to his transfer.

READ: Lapeña out of Customs but named Tesda chief with Cabinet rank

With the said measures, Panelo said that the government would continue to work in order to bring down the unemployment rate in the country.

“Indeed, there will be no let-up in our efforts to bring down the unemployment rate and increase labor participation among our youth and women,” he said. /je