For the third
consecutive year, the Iloilo City Public Employment Service Office (PESO)
received recognition as the Best PESO in Western Visayas from the Department of
Labor and Employment (DOLE).
The city will
represent the region for the national awards, where they will be vying for the
Hall of Fame, in October.
“This is a strong
validation of the hard work of PESO Iloilo City and the intensified efforts of
our mayor (Jerry Treñas) in making sure that jobs are accessible to all. This
is a strong testament to our partnership with our employers,” PESO manager Gabriel
Felix Umadhay said in an interview on Tuesday.
PESO Iloilo City’s
other awards for 2024 are highest number of registered, referred, and placed
job applicants; highest number of DOLE programs implemented and job vacancies
posted; best career development support program; best JobStart Philippines
Program; Extra Mile Award: Child Labor Elimination Program; and highest
National Skills Registration Program recorded applicants.
It is now elevated to
the Hall of Fame Award for the most number of DOLE programs implemented, and
the most number of registered, referred, and placed job applicants.
“The most important of
these are the highest job recruitments, highest job referrals, highest job
vacancies and highest placed job applicants. These are the four essential
functions of the office,” Umadhay said.
The PESO Employment
Information System indicated 13,069 job applicants from 20 job fairs, 68 local
recruitment activities, and 21 special recruitment activities conducted by PESO
Iloilo City in 2024.
Further, there were
18,022 job applicants based on the performance reporting system of DOLE in the
same year.
Umadhay said under the
new administration of Mayor-elect Raisa Treñas-Chu, the agency looks forward to
attracting big firms and expanding the implementation of livelihood programs to
make them more accessible.
“Our goal is to
produce more employers rather than employees. We will support startup
companies, especially the innovative ones. We will provide free training. We
will start negosyo (business) training in July to incubate more proposals,
which we will use as data to request funds from DOLE,” Umadhay said. (By Perla
Lena, PNA)