By Billy Begas
The House of Representatives has approved on third and final reading the measure establishing a tripartite council that will formulate the policy to address unemployment, underemployment, and job skills mismatch in the country.
House Bill 7370 garnered 277 affirmative votes and three negative votes.
Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez said the proposal underscored the importance of matching the skills and education with the jobs available and future employment opportunities.
“Part of our unemployment problem is due to the fact that many of the new members of our labor force do not possess the competency employers are looking for. Their education and job requirements do not match. This is one of the problems we would like to address in approving the bill,” Romualdez said.
The envisioned Tripartite Council “shall be a coordinating body among the government, academe, and industry sectors to primarily monitor economic trends in the global and domestic markets, including those pertaining to business and commerce and the local market, and to generate information relative to employment, unemployment, underemployment, and job-skills mismatch.”
The Council shall be composed of representatives from the government, labor sector, and the academe.
It will be tasked to monitor trends in the domestic and international labor market, and the incidence of unemployment, underemployment, and job-skills mismatch in the country, and formulate policies, plans, and programs to address these problems.
It shall also conduct an inventory, review, and evaluation of courses and academic programs of private and public higher learning institutions, assess the qualifications and skills of students and graduates, and list job specifications and skills requirements of various industries.
It shall recommend to Congress and the President policy measures that need to be enacted or undertaken to solve employment-related problems.
