GPCCI held the fourth and final Industry Placement Committee (IPC) meeting last August 25 as part of the Future Movers Programme (FMP). As the FMP comes to a close at the end of October 2021, the final IPC meeting recapped the project’s highlights and underlined the sustained goal to transition Internally Displaced Persons of Marawi into the workplace through continued industry engagement.
GPCCI held the fourth and final Industry Placement Committee (IPC) meeting last August 25 as part of the Future Movers Programme (FMP). The FMP aims to develop construction-related skills among Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Marawi in the wake of the 2017 conflict.
As the FMP comes to a close at the end of October 2021, the final IPC meeting recapped the project’s highlights and underlined the sustained goal to transition IDPs into the workplace through continued industry engagement. To that end, the FMP is working on an online job portal, which will connect jobseekers and employers across the Philippines to support employment facilitation.
To gather more insights from the 15 IPC participants, three parallel breakout room discussions were initiated to discuss 1) industry-academe collaboration, 2) emerging market needs, and 3) human resource challenges in the construction industry.
Mr. Joneil Año, Stakeholder Relation Manager of Holcim Philippines, represented the first group and emphasized that construction-site safety, especially for informal workers, should be a priority for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) providers.
Meanwhile, the second group identified the lack of mastery and training in certain competencies as one of the most pressing issues in the industry now.
Lastly, Ms. Roxanne Rangel of BAUER Foundations Philippines, Inc. summarized the third group’s discussions by highlighting that training, upskilling, and incentivizing workers to stay should be a common practice by companies in the industry.
According to a survey on training and recruitment practices in the construction industry which GPCCI conducted, 36 out of 43 company respondents have plans to hire in 2021 and 2022. The Philippine construction sector is considered a growth industry and one of the major job generators in the country, mainly driven by the government's Build, Build, Build program.