Senator Joel Villanueva has welcomed the latest government data on the continued decline of unemployment and underemployment rates as a “positive sign” that efforts to generate jobs for Filipinos continue to matter.
The April 2019 Labor Force Survey by the Philippine Statistics Authority showed that unemployment dropped to 5.1 percent from 5.5 percent while underemployment fell to 13.5 percent from 17 percent.
Villanueva, chair of the Senate committee on Labor, Employment and Human Resources Development, said that while this development is a good sign, he stressed on the need for more “policy tweaks” to ensure that the decline is sustainable.
“There is a need for more policy tweaks to ensure that the decline is sustainable.”
“We need stakeholders such as industry, government, the academe, and labor to work hand in hand so that we continue to eradicate the decades-old problem of mismatch among available jobs and the job market,” the seasoned legislator said.
“The challenge for us is to develop dynamic policies that respond to the prevailing needs of the times, and change accordingly when warranted. This is the spirit that drive the Tulong Trabaho law which we pushed in the recently-concluded 17th Congress,” the veteran lawmaker added.
The senator said he will push for measures in the 18th Congress that will help resolve job-skills mismatch by strengthening the linkage between education, training and the labor market.
“I will push for measures in the 18th Congress that will help resolve job-skills mismatch.”
“Our background in tech-voc and legislation has given us a unique opportunity to gain a comprehensive understanding of the education and labor sectors,” he added.