‘Build’ to build 2M jobs a year: Bello

Up to two million jobs will be generated every year when the Duterte administration’s Build, Build, Build program starts, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said.

Bello said that President Rodrigo Duterte’s infrastructure program is expected to create 1.5 to two million jobs across the country every year.

“That is why all of us will be given a job. We will all become regular (employees),” he told reporters.

Bello and other Cabinet secretaries were in Cebu with the President yesterday to attend the Labor Day activities.

He said this will further improve the unemployment rate in the country, which stood at 5.3 percent as of January this year.

This is lower compared to the 6.6 unemployment rate recorded in the same month last year, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

The labor force participation rate also increased to 62.2 percent as of January 2018 from 50.7 percent in the same month last year.

The PSA noted, though, that the underemployment rate rose from 16.3 percent in January 2017 to 18 percent in January this year.

It classified as underemployed those workers who want to work additional hours and those who want jobs that have longer working hours but are unable to do so.

Through the Build, Build, Build program, the Duterte administration also expects poverty incidence to drop from 21.6 percent at present to 14 percent in 2022.

The program involves 75 flagship projects that include six airports, nine railways, three Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) projects, 32 roads and bridges and four seaports.

Among them is the proposed BRT project for Cebu.

These transport-related projects are seen to help bring down the cost of production of goods, improve rural development, encourage countryside investments, allow the movement of goods and passengers with ease, and generate more jobs.

The Duterte administration will also build four energy facilities that will ensure a stable power supply at a lower cost, 10 water resource projects and irrigation systems, five flood control facilities and three redevelopment programs.