The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) has recognized Iloilo City’s Public Employment Service Office (PESO) as the best among the highly urbanized cities (HUCs) in the country.
The award was given Wednesday night, Oct. 25, as part of the ongoing 23rd National PESO Congress in Palo, Leyte.
“It (the award) means we have the best performing PESO in terms of providing job opportunities,” Gabriel Felix Umadhay, PESO Manager of Iloilo City, said in an interview Thursday.
Umadhay attributed the recognition to the three matrices in the delivery of services through the city’s PESO – employment, career guidance and labor market information.
In terms of employment, in 2022, the office surpassed its target under its labor employment plan of 14,000 jobs, with 16,000 individuals availing of jobs in partnership with private companies locally and about 2,000 for international placement.
This year, the city has already breached its 16,000 jobs target as early as September.
“We opened all our employment through public spaces such as free special recruitment activities in plazas and job fairs in barangays. It helped us reach our target of providing jobs to Ilonggos without them resorting to illegal recruitment, sparing them from human trafficking,” Umadhay added.
He credited their partnership with different companies that provided them with job solicitation and available jobs employment reports as a factor in the success of their program.
The career guidance targets schools, he said, while for labor market information, they produced statistics on the labor market to inform schools of the demand, employable age and skills needed for academic institutions to attune their training.
Umadhay said the implication is that Iloilo City is “attractive to investors” with people equipped with the necessary skills needed for the kind of jobs that they open.
“With the unemployment that is going down, people have a better capacity of buying products and at the same time better capacity of helping their family,” he said.Perla Lena/PNA
