MANILA – President Rodrigo Duterte is set to issue an executive order (EO) for the creation of National Employment Recovery Strategy (NERS) Task Force which aims to bring back jobs in the labor market and enhance the skills of the local workforce.
NERS will also aide Filipinos who lost their jobs due to coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic.
Cabinet secretary Karlo Nograles said the EO institutionalizing NERS is being drafted and will be released in the days to come.
The task force, according to Nograles, wants to improve employability and productivity of workers. It provides support for existing and emerging businesses.
“The strategic framework of the NERS is based on the following pillars – stimulating the economy and employment; supporting enterprises, jobs, and income; protecting workers in the workplace, and trusting social dialogue to encourage innovative solutions,” Nograles said.
NERS will be chaired by the Department of Trade and Industry. It will be co-chaired by the Department of Labor and Employment and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority.
The Office of the Cabinet Secretary, Departments of Finance, Budget and Management, and the National Economic and Development Authority will serve as members of the Oversight Committee.
Among the policy considerations the NERS task force has discussed are the emphasis on the need for a whole-of-government approach that will help create jobs and encourage more investments vis-à-vis key government policy and program interventions; the affordability of testing requirements to restart the tourism industry; and the push for policies to strengthen finances through measures which will help access to finance of pandemic-hit enterprises.
According to Nograles, the task force hopes to become a coherent strategy for the government to further decrease the 17.7 percent unemployment rate last year, based on the data from the Philippine Statistics Authority.
“While we were able to halve that to 8.7 percent by October 2020, we recognize that a coherent national strategy can help create a policy environment that encourages generation of more employment and entrepreneurship opportunities,” Nograles said./PN
