House okays bill creating tripartite council to address unemployment

THE House of Representatives unanimously approved on Tuesday a bill creating a labor panel to address the unemployment problem in the country.

Meanwhile, the Lower House also ratified a measure declaring every first Monday of August as the “National Line Workers Appreciation Day” to recognize the service and important role of electric line workers in the country’s development.

House Bill (HB) 7370, passed with 277 yes votes with no abstention, seeks to create a tripartite council to address unemployment, underemployment and the job-skills mismatch problem in the country.

Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez said the proposed law would benefit a lot of unemployed workers, college graduates, and students as the proposed council is tasked to help them match their skills and education with jobs currently available as well as 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 noted.

The measure aims to “ensure the relevance and adequacy of academic courses in the higher education curriculum and training programs offered in technical-vocational institutions in relation to the needs and requirements of the business and industry sectors and the overall human resource requirement of the country pursuant to its economic development goals.” Maricel V. Cruz