Pursue 4-pronged jobs program, Puno urges the government

The government should revert its focus on the economy and on implementing a four-pronged jobs program to help Filipinos cope with an impending global recession, instead of unduly focusing on political issues that only sow discord among the people and severely hurt the economy, opposition senatorial candidate Ricardo "Dong" Puno Jr. said yesterday.

Puno, a frontrunning candidate of the Puwersa ng Masa-Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (PnM-Laban) coalition, said to curb the rising unemployment rate, the government must pursue this four-pronged jobs strategy that involves job creation, job preservation, community-based employment matching services, loan assistance and retraining programs to assist job hunters and displaced workers.

"The government’s employment strategy should be four-pronged. It should preserve jobs, generate them, enhance the quality of the work force and facilitate employment opportunities for our people," Puno pointed out.

Puno, a former press secretary and presidential spokesman, said the government should intensify its jobs program especially in the wake of reports that the unemployment rate has hit a nine-month high of 11.4 percent in January, even before some 800,000 students expected to graduate this summer can find jobs.

He said focusing on job generation and preservation have become even more imperative in the wake of the projections of the International Monetary Fund that the country’s inflation rate would hit eight percent in the coming months, which means that Filipinos would have to cope with higher prices of basic goods amid a rising unemployment rate.

Puno, whose eight-point program Puno ng Pag-asa para sa Masa focuses on job creation, said the government should center its efforts on labor-intensive initiatives such as the full implementation of the Agricultural and Fisheries Modernization Act, infrastructure buildup and housing.

The farm sector alone employs over 10 million workers while infrastructure projects and housing programs create a multiplier effect of generating more jobs in related industries, Puno added.