The Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) announced on Wednesday that it intends to provide women and OFWs with more upskilling and livelihood initiatives this year.
“We plan to empower our women industrial trades to provide them more opportunities for wage and employment,” says the deputy director general of TESDA, Aniceto D. Bertiz III.
Retooling and upskilling, according to him, will encourage trainees to work in the Philippines rather than abroad. Since it first opened in 1998, Mr. Bertiz said that the TESDA Women’s Center has trained more than 10,000 women.
“TESDA also recognizes the need to help retool and upskill the more than one million OFWs who were displaced and repatriated during the pandemic,” Bertiz said.
In order to offer training in information communications technology and other diploma courses, the agency also wants to establish 18 innovation centers. In September, the Department of Labor and Employment assumed control for TESDA. The Department of Migrant Workers said in December that it would offer livelihood programs to job seekers who had fallen prey to human trafficking schemes.
In 2022, the unemployment rate decreased to 5.4%, which was a three-year low and the lowest level since 5.1% in 2019, just before the coronavirus pandemic.
“By developing industrial skills in these non-traditional trades, women are given the chance to be more competitive in these industries mostly dominated by men,” Bertiz added.
