The Philippine government and overseas employment agencies will pursue joint projects to invigorate employment chances of Filipino workers in the global setting in facing the challenges brought about by the global financial crisis. The joint projects include skills training investments and enhancements, streamlining of recruitment processes and policies, sharing of government and private sector registry of workers, strengthening welfare and protection mechanisms of workers, review of prevailing salary standards, and aggressive bilateral missions. These combined efforts of stakeholders in the overseas employment industry, private and government sectors, are summed up in a list of measures to support employment growth issued in a “communiqué” personally presented to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in Manila on Monday by more than 150 private sector industry representatives with the full backing of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), the Technical Education Skills Development Authority (TESDA) and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA). DOLE Secretary Marianito D. Roque revealed that private industry, in a series of recent consultations, assisted the government in identifying the myriad of concerns and suggested solutions to promote job preservation and job generation in the land-based and sea-based areas overseas to be jointly conducted by all sectors. With the objective of supporting employment growth, private industry and concerned government sectors agree to vigorously build on programs geared to skills/trade training enhancement through the continuous training for skilled workers, industry associations to invest resources in the establishment of training centers with the full support of TESDA, accreditation of more trade centers particularly in the regions, strengthening the on-the-job-training program, and enhancing public awareness of the need for skills training through information dissemination and education at the grassroots level. Other mechanisms to be developed to facilitate the hiring and placement of workers are to streamline existing recruitment policies and procedures, pursue human resource development initiatives such as mutual recognition of skills, employers to support a return-of-skills program to reverse the brain drain, review existing salary levels for skilled workers and professionals, allow on-site recruitment of displaced workers who have finished contracts, make the DOLE registry of workers accessible on-line to the private sector, explore the installation of online interview facilities for foreign employers and provide mobile passport services during job fairs. More joint public and private labor market development missions, both inbound and outbound, are also planned to preserve and generate employment opportunities for seafarers, heighten market intelligence gathering and research, including coordination with stakeholders and the associations of ship owners and through market development coordination and missions, engage partners and ship owners in “handholding” efforts and provide assurances about the quality of seafarers. Also a continuing priority program identified by the industry with government is strengthening the welfare and protection of expatriate Filipino workers through the pursuit of aggressive negotiations for more bilateral/multilateral labor and social security agreements, promoting ethical recruitment practices, exploring/studying unemployment indemnity insurance and undertaking a joint campaign among the government, private sector and workers groups to ensure the integrity of employment documents. Other important measures to be conducted are the review of the standard/model employment contracts of expatriate Filipino workers to enhance their working conditions, facilitate the carriage of government cargo by Philippine-registered vessels to enhance their economic opportunities, address the shortage of officers in the seafaring business and redeploy displaced seafarers, facilitate registration of officers through walk-in examinations and work on the fast-tracking of the issuance by PRC of the implementing rules on the management level course (MLC) and single examination procedure. Recent consultations attended by Philippine labor attachés from the Middle East, Europe and Asia also call for the combat against illegal recruitment and human trafficking of expatriate Filipino workers and the improvement of the competitiveness of Philippine vessels/ships lay-up areas by opening more lay-up ports and review applicable PPA rates.
