ADB lends PHL $0.5B for growth

THE Philippine government has secured a new loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) worth $500 million to address the impact of the pandemic on jobs and livelihoods.

The new policy-based loan, the ADB said, will help the government a liberalized business and investment environment to encourage the private sector to grow and create more jobs.

The program will also support government initiatives to expand labor market programs that address the skills mismatch and promote training to reskill and retool workers to meet new demands in the post-pandemic jobs market.

“With the economy slowly moving towards a sustainable growth path, it is important to ensure private enterprises are supported with policies that make it easier for them to do business and generate employment,” said ADB Senior Public Management Economist Sameer Khatiwada.

“This program is expected to help create jobs, get businesses back into action, and pave the way for displaced workers, youth, and women to return to the labor market by enhancing their skills through training and linking them to good quality jobs,” he added.

The new loan program will help the government implement the “National Employment Recovery Strategy,” or NERS, and achieve its targets to raise employment by 2025.

The ADB already assisted the government in facilitating dialogue with key industry stakeholders on designing the NERS, which was launched at the height of the pandemic to improve workers’ access to jobs.

The NERS also helps create livelihoods and provide training to support the private sector in creating sustainable work opportunities.

The new loan program draws on ADB’S experience since 2010 in supporting the government’s employment facilitation, secondary education, and social protection programs.

In particular, it expands the Adbfinanced “Facilitating Youth Schoolto-work Transition” program, which helped the government introduce and strengthen active labor market programs through public employment service offices nationwide and Jobstart Philippines life skills training for at-risk youth.

ADB said the Philippine workforce was hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, with the country recording the steepest decline in employment rates among Southeast Asian countries in 2020.

While the unemployment rate declined to 4.2 percent in November 2022 from 6.5 percent a year earlier, labor market recovery remains uneven.

For example, wage employment in private establishments remains lower than pre-pandemic levels. Similarly, informal employment remains higher, even though it has declined in recent months.