LAST year, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. approved the Labor and Employment Plan (LEP) 2023 to 2028 to reduce unemployment in the Philippines and address underemployment by providing better jobs for Filipinos.

President Marcos also directed the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) to continue coordinating with private entities to identify current trends in the labor market and ensure that Filipino workers have proper training and skills that are attractive to that market; both here and overseas.

The LEP 2023 to 2028 serves as the labor framework, aligned with the Marcos administration's socioeconomic agenda, and complements the Philippine Development Plan (PDP) 2023 to 2028 to achieve a future of enhanced labor and governance and equitable employment opportunities in the country.

DoLE Secretary Bienvenido Laguesma said the LEP covered three focal areas: maximizing remunerative, freely chosen and sustainable work and employment opportunities; ensuring labor governance that respects all fundamental principles and rights at work, international labor standards and human rights; and building equitable and inclusive social protection.

The first area aims for increased employability, equal access to employment opportunities, shared labor market governance, and an enhanced enabling environment, promoting sustainable and resilient enterprises, particularly micro, small and medium enterprises.

Expected outcomes for the second include improved labor administration capacity, strengthened capacities of government and social partners, and modern and balanced policy and legal and institutional frameworks on labor protection for all.

And the third seeks to ensure an enhanced and inclusive implementation of social protection, and strengthened policy and institutional framework.

Representatives from the tripartite sector convened recently to set strategic plans and actions following the President's approval of the LEP, which aims to generate over 3 million jobs amid the planned implementation of the Department of Public Works and Highways' (DPWH) 70,000 big and small infrastructure projects under the Build Better More program.

Among the identified interventions to promote employment and human resources development in the country include aligning educational curricula to labor market requirements that entail a review of the current curricula, modules and training standards in basic and higher education; technical-vocational education and training offerings; and professional development programs.

Under the LEP, the sector also aims to invest more in research to conduct impact studies on employment.

Green jobs

The DoLE also continues transforming its existing programs, such as the Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers or Tupad, to align with industry demand for green jobs and skills.

Green jobs — defined by Republic Act 10771, or the Philippine Green Jobs Act, as those that contribute to environmental preservation while providing decent work — are expected to be a major source of employment.

A Technical Education and Skills Development Authority study estimates that about 5.1 million green jobs will be created by 2025, spanning sectors such as renewable energy, agriculture, waste management and construction.

Sonny Matula, president of the Federation of Free Workers, said new job creation was expected to come from several key industries such as energy, manufacturing and tourism.

He also said the rapid advancement of digital technologies drove job growth in sectors such as artificial intelligence (AI), cybersecurity, data analytics and e-commerce as businesses increasingly adopt automation and AI.

Matula added that with the focus on improving health care systems, particularly in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, health care jobs were expected to grow significantly. This includes roles in medical research, biotechnology, telemedicine and health technology innovation.

The FFW chief said the push for infrastructure development, particularly green infrastructure projects, would create jobs. He added that these projects are crucial for the sustainable development of cities, rural areas and energy systems.

"It can be said that the expansion of green jobs, coupled with advancements in technology and infrastructure development, will shape the job market in 2025, providing diverse opportunities across multiple sectors," Matula said.

Project Jobs'

The business sector, on the other hand, is pushing its Project Jobs, which aims to create 1 million jobs this year in support of the Marcos administration's employment agenda.

Project Jobs is being jointly implemented by the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP), the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc.

ECOP President Sergio Ortiz-Luis Jr. said they were on track to reach 1 million jobs in 2024.

"We are now focusing on setting up a platform, especially the one where applicants do not need to be physically present, and we are trying to improve the setup where the job mismatch can be addressed...," Ortiz-Luis told the 45th National Conference of Employers in Manila in late June.

He also emphasized the need to revitalize the country's education system to create more jobs amid the advent of digitalization, saying the state of education had become a cause for concern, mainly due to the lack of a budget allocated to the sector.

"It's an issue. That's why we are putting out platforms in education," Luis-Ortiz said.

"For example, in the past, we were ahead when it came to English. But today, Thailand and Malaysia are already ahead of us. In mathematics, we are moving further and further away," he added.

'Exceedingly difficult'

For its part, the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP), the country's biggest labor group, said the DoLE's employment plan to create over 3 million jobs translated to an average of more than half a million jobs a year but added that it was only creating about 150,000 jobs, as the IBON Foundation found.

"It is exceedingly difficult to find a job, much less a full-time regular job," said the TUCP, citing a Social Weather Stations survey that shows 69 percent of Filipino adults find it hard to find employment.

The union also said since 2011, finding a job had always been hard. Quoting the ECOP, the Labor Market Profile of the Philippines–2021/2022 by the Danish Trade Union Development Agency said due to structural unemployment, "It takes a high school graduate up to three years to find the first job and four years to find a permanent wage job," while, "It takes a college graduate one year to find the first job and up to two years to find a permanent position."

It cited, as an example, the number of fresh graduates from state-run colleges in 2024 alone — 1.6 million — with the significant majority entering the pool of the jobless. Many of them would not even seek jobs in a labor market yet to fully recover from the Covid-19 pandemic; not only in quantity but also quality of employment.

As of June 2024, the youth unemployment rate is 8.6 percent, which is more than double the national unemployment rate of 3.1 percent, while youth underemployment is 12.9 percent, which remains stuck in double digits for far too long.

The TUCP also said while the LEP identified Information Technology-Business Process Management (IT-BPM), retailing and wholesaling, education and financial services, among others, as key employment-generating sectors, this only reinforces the dominance of employment in the service sector, which accounted for nearly more than half of the employed. Yet, this is the sector most vulnerable to shocks.

Left behind, the group said, is employment in the industrial sector, including manufacturing, which is ideal for generating decent, good-paying jobs. Also taking a hit is the labor-intensive agriculture sector, which plays a key role in food security, it added.