Davao City Councilor Antoinette Principe is proposing to have a barangay employment desk (BED) in all 182 barangays in the city to address unemployment.
Principe, who is the vice chairperson of the committee on labor and employment, said on Saturday that she hopes to pass the proposed ordinance before the council ends for the May 2019 midterm elections. Principe is a re-electionist councilor from the third district.
“We hope to bring to bring the BED in all barangays in the city, so that people will not have to the Public Employment Service Office (PESO) just to seek for jobs,” Principe said during the Davao Media Forum at Basti’s Brew Café.
Although she said that some barangays in the city and other neighboring provinces had already implemented a similar program, she said the ordinance would institutionalize it.
She said the proposal came after a partnership her committee had with PESO through various job fairs.
“PESO is very strong with its programs here in Davao City,” Principe said.
In a January 2018 record from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), Davao region has the highest employment rate in the country with 95.3 percent. The national average is 94.7 percent.
However, the city has an unemployment rate of 4 percent or around 130,000, while underemployment is 17 percent numbering some 400,000.
