DMDP hosts JobStart partnership forum

CEBU, Philippines - Cebu City’s Department of Manpower Development and Placement held an Employers' Partnership Forum yesterday morning at Diamond Suites and Residences hoping to gain partnership for the Jobstart Philippines Program.

JobStart Philippines is a program for young Filipinos that seeks to integrate full-cycle employment facilitation service to provide job opportunities for the unemployed.

It is a partnership program of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), in partnership with the Public Employment Service Offices of Local Government Units, Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

Engineer Fidel Magno, DMDP head, said that their aim is to promote employment and to enhance the employability of youth to improve their integration into a productive employment.

Forum participants were composed of 20 employers mostly from different hotels and resorts including Plantation Bay Resort and Spa, Shangri-La Hotels & Restaurants, and Radisson Blu Hotels & Restaurants, among others.

Launched as a pilot program in 2014, JobStart Philippines continues to foster jobstarters gaining an 80 percent success rate.

Before his term of office ended, former president Benigno Aquino III signed Republic Act 108691 implementing the JobStart Philippines program.

The program welcomes even high school graduates aged between 18-24 years old without any job experience.

Magno said to widen the job offers overseas, he is looking for technical and/or construction workers for they are in demand in the foreign countries. (FREEMAN)