• Secretary Danilo Cruz of TESDA;
• Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, Senate Committee Chairperson for Basic Education, Arts and Culture, and Energy
• Mr Lloyd Cameron, Economic and Climate Counsellor at the British Embassy - Manila
• Deputy Director General Rosanna Urdaneta and TESDA officials, including regional offices in the Visayas
• Partners from industry and tech-voc institutions
• Ladies and gentlemen, magandang umaga (good morning)!

Today’s activity highlights the ILO’s strong partnership with the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) in enhancing the system to improve employability.

Everyone’s presence today shows your commitment to improve labour market information and use it to develop responsive policies amid changing skills demand.

This ongoing partnership is very relevant, especially now that the country will launch the Philippine Development Plan anchored on the administration’s eight-point socio-economic agenda, notably in formulating policies to achieve its “jobs agenda” or “creating more jobs, creating quality jobs, and creating green jobs.”

The Decent Work Country Programme of the Philippines and the ILO’s Global Call to Action for an inclusive, sustainable and resilient human-centred recovery from COVID-19 are well positioned to support the eight-point socio-economic agenda.

The administration’s agenda highlights the need for an effective mechanism that provides detailed labour market information on in-demand skills both at the national and regional levels.

This mechanism complements industry or business stakeholders’ consultations and maximizes the availability of Labour Force Survey (LFS) data in the country.

Since March 2021, ILO through the UK-funded Skills for Prosperity Programme and TESDA have collaborated with international and national experts to analyze major statistical surveys in the Philippines; identify the LMI to be used, processed and interpreted; provide introductory training to TVET staff primarily in the pilot regions of VI, VII, and VIII.

Learning from initial results from these pilot regions, today’s workshop will highlight findings, challenges, lessons and recommendations for enhancing TVET and LMI in the country.

Using a methodology developed by our international experts, we examined 2019 and 2020 LFS data to analyze demand and, partially supply of skilled labour in the Visayas regions.
Results of this analysis were presented in separate regional completion workshops held last month.

The discussions during these regional workshops were undeniably complex, which may have also caused some apprehensions on the use of analytical methods.

Nonetheless, it is reassuring is at the end of the discussions, there was consensus that preliminary results are valuable for better TVET planning and delivery and highly applicable to TESDA’s thrust for area-based training delivery.

Regional stakeholders concurred that continual capacity-building is essential so that key officers can maximize the country’s advanced statistical system and generate a more detailed analysis of the demand for and supply of skilled workforce tailored to the TVET system’s needs.

Recommendations for addressing certain constraints in the country’s statistical system and in some aspects of public employment services will be presented during today’s workshop as part of capacity-building.

With this, your insights on the recommendations are crucial as we move forward with this endeavour.

I hope that today’s workshop will be fruitful and successful in enhancing employability, promoting decent work, and ensuring that no one is left behind.

Maraming salamat po (Thank you very much)!