(Eagle News)–If all goes well, the Tulong Trabaho bill will soon be signed into law.
Senator Joel Villanueva, chair of the Senate Committee on Labor, Employment and Human Resources Development, said the harmonized version of Senate Bill No. 1431 and House Bill No. 8139 that aims to create a fund to allow for free technical vocational education training for eligible candidates was sent to Malacañang on Jan. 24.
The measure aims to address what Villanueva said was the job-skills mismatch that has resulted in high unemployment rate.
Villanueva said unemployment rate in the Philippines rose to 5.1 percent in the last quarter of 2018 from the 5 percent in the same period in 2017.
He said the number of unemployed persons went up by 17,000 to 2.2 million while the number of employed dropped by 218,000 to 41.3 million.
Villanueva also noted what he said was a report that revealed that educated Filipinos comprise almost half of the unemployed population in the country.
“This is a serious concern since it highlights the prevalence of job-skills mismatch in our country. To help resolve unemployment, the knowledge and skills of our graduates must match with the jobs needed by the market,” Villanueva said.
Under the measure, Villanueva said the created fund would also allow for additional financial assistance to students such as transportation allowance and laboratory fees.
He said the fund under the measure will be administered by the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority.
“That’s why we want to give more support to our people — working and not working — by apportioning a Tulong Trabaho Fund in the General Appropriations Act that will be managed by the TESDA Board,” he said.