Youth employment research topped the agenda of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) at the DOLE Inter-Agency Committee on Research Matters (DOLE-IAC-RM) Stakeholder Consultations organized by the Institute for Labor Studies (ILS) in January.

With the theme, “The Future of Work: Research Initiatives for 2013,” this year’s stakeholder consultation took a special focus on decent jobs for the youth with the 2013 DOLE focus on youth employment.

“This Research Agenda Stakeholder Consultation provides a series of opportunities to increase understanding and awareness on initiatives and concerns on decent jobs for the youth particularly among policy makers, program managers and stakeholders that may most likely affect them,” said ILS Executive Director Cynthia R. Cruz, Chairperson of the DOLE-IAC-RM.

The Stakeholder Consultation was conducted in cooperation with the Joint Programme on Youth Employment and Migration (JP-YEM), a pilot project by DOLE and the United Nations Country Team, composed of its agencies International Labour Organization, International Organization for Migration, United Nations Children’s Fund and the United Nations Population Fund.
“The Stakeholders’ Consultation supports many initiatives the JP-YEM has piloted in the past three years. We will seek and find ways to translate solutions done in small scale into mainstreaming and integrating all the youth employment and migration issues in the various programs and policies of DOLE offices and agencies,” said Cruz.
Cruz wrote a strategy paper on youth employment entitled “Alternative Pathways: Toward Charting an Actionable Framework for Youth Employment & Migration,” which was presented to the President on International Youth Day in 2011. The strategy paper became the basis of the inter-agency National Action Plan on Youth Employment.

“This DOLE-IAC-RM gathering provided us a tool and venue to determine how our external stakeholders view the research agenda, its potentials, impacts, opportunities, and existing projects connected or related to it, which can very much help us in developing responsive policy research on youth employment,” said Cruz.
The DOLE-IAC-RM is an inter-agency committee of research teams coming from the different attached agencies, bureaus and services of the DOLE. The Committee is led by the ILS, the policy research and advocacy arm of the DOLE.

“Getting our stakeholders’ views and feedback is important to us. Their views are a valuable source of information that can improve project implementation and outcomes, as well as increase stakeholder participation on our initiatives in the pipeline. Also inputs gathered from the consultation can form the basis for future collaboration and partnerships, which we believe is the value of this research dialogue,” said Cruz.

Among the speakers invited to provide their inputs to the research plan were Mr. Antonio Asper of the Federation of Free Workers, Dr. Kelly Bird of the Asian Development Bank, Dr. Emily Cabegin of the University of the Philippines School of Labor Relations, Ms. Margarita Amaris Javillonar, representing the Employers Confederation of the Philippines and Ms. Rhodora Abano of the Center for Migrant Advocacy.

“With the conclusion of the JP-YEM, the challenge now is in translating the learnings from the pilot project into actual results and outcomes for our young people. Research can provide that link from aspirations to action, providing evidenced-based recommendations to public policy, on how we can provide decent jobs for the youth,” Cruz emphasized.

The ILS was created in July 1987 by virtue of Executive Order No. 257. Since its creation the Institute has always been at the forefront of labor and employment policy research and advocacy providing strategic policy research for the Department of Labor and Employment.

(For more information on this press release please contact Ms. LINARTES M. VILORIA, Chief Labor & Employment Officer, Advocacy & Publications Division, Institute for Labor Studies, Telephone Nos.: 5273490 / 5273447)