Central Luzon PESOs hold year-end assessment
108,772 jobseekers placed CLARK FREEPORT ZONE – Central Luzon’s Public Employment Services Offices (PESOs) concluded their 2017 PESO Year-End Performance Assessment (PESO-MYPA) with the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).
The three-day year-end performance and planning assessment was held at the Royce Hotel and Casino at the Clark Freeport Zone.
DOLE Regional Director Atty. Ana Dione reported to Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III that around 120 delegates comprising PESO Managers/ Personnel from various PESOs all over the region attended the event.
Aside from the PESOs, officials of the Central Luzon Career Guidance Network (CL-CGN), who are now regular mainstays on PESO assessments, were also in full-force.
Technical Support and Services Division for Employment and Welfare head Alejandro Inza Cruz and Labor Statistician Andre Josef Bustos took turns in highlighting the PESOs’notable accomplishments for CY-2017.
Firs, is the placement of 224,382 jobseekers for local and overseas work which recorded an astonishing placement rate of 88 percent over 254,460 referred applicants.
“Thanks to our continued partnership with the PESOs, we’ve set another milestone in providing for more employment opportunities in ensuring that our job seekers land jobs through our help. With our latest scorecard, we have surpassed the Bureau of Local Employment’s (BLEs) 80 percent placement rate target,” Inza Cruz said.
Another employment facilitation activity initiated by the DOLE and PESOs is the conduct of 10 region-wide job fairs during the Labor Day and Independence Day festivities.
Aside from this, the DOLE and PESOs also teamed up in holding various local job fairs within provinces, cities, and municipalities all over the region.
All national and local job fairs have adopted the Trabaho, Negosyo, Kabuhayan (TNK) Concept forged between the DOLE and Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).
Bustos, for his part, provided updates on several employment programs aimed to boost employment opportunities and learning for the region’s working youths. According to him, some 26,679 poor but deserving students were provided short-term employment opportunities through the SPES, which stands for Special Program for the Employment of Students.
“As of December 2017, P97,634,086 SPES-funds, representing government’s 40 percent share for payment of salaries of SPES-beneficiaries, have already been released/ paid to some 25,499 students upon completing their requirements,” Bustos explained, adding the remaining 60 percent of their salaries, on the other hand, were shouldered by the DOLE’s SPESpartners from participating local government units and private firms.
Aside from SPES, Bustos reported that some 1,031 youth beneficiaries comprising college graduates/undergraduates, tech-voch, and high school graduates were engaged in government work under the DOLE Government Internship Program (GIP). “Our DOLE GIP intern-beneficiaries were engaged in government work assigned to various LGUs, public schools, and other government agencies.”
Some 97,804 students from 385 public schools, TESDA training institutions, and State Universities and Colleges all over the region attended 462 Career Guidance and Employment Coaching (CGEC) Seminars.
The high CGEC-scorecard is attributed to the close coordination between the PESOs and Career Guidance Networks on their Career Guidance Advocacy activities in pursuit of minimizing future jobs mismatch.
On livelihood and emergency employment, some 51,660 marginalized individuals comprising farmers, ambulant vendors, working youths, housewives, and persons with disabilities were provided livelihood assistance/ projects amounting to P244,714,200. The livelihood projects include NegoKarts, Starter Kits, Youth Employment Program (YES), Workers Income Augmentation Program (WIN-AP), and Tulong Panghanapbuhay para sa Ating Disadvantaged Workers (TUPAD).
Inza Cruz noted that all funded interventions were sourced from the DOLE Integrated Livelihood and Emergency Employment Program or DILEEP and centrally-managed funds.
Dione, who was present to oversee the assessment, lauded and thanked the PESOs for their valuable contribution in garnering successful assessment scorecards for the whole year.
“We commend you all for a job well-done in achieving our targets last year. Thank you for your continued support and commitment in ensuring that our programs and services reach and transform the lives of our jobseekers and beneficiaries from the grassroots. For this year, we continue working as partners towards providing more employment and livelihood opportunities for the various clients that we serve and ensure that we can enable them to find success with our programs,” Dione said, adding:
Another important highlight of this year’s YEPA is the capacity building programs relevant to various DOLE and PESO programs that all PESO Managers and Personnel have undertaken. The DOLE Bureau of Local Employment (BLE) provided an Orientation and Updates on the PESO Employment Information Systems (PEIS) while PESOs with remarkable PEIS scorecards were recognized. The Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA), for its part, discussed one of the agency’s flagship programs for overseas Filipino workers, the OWWA Workers’Assistance Program ( WAP) .
All PESO personnel participated in the discussion and exchange of ideas and strategies in drafting an Action Plan in today’s PESO Planning Session and PESO Hour. A Fellowship Night, featuring the Search for the Mr. and Ms. PESO for 2018, Beach Party Dance Competition, and Awarding of Regional Best PESOs for 2018, was also held.— Jerry Borja/ DOLE-3 LCO