The Philippines and Japan have signed a cooperation agreement for the joint implementation of a training program, to prepare Filipino construction workers for Manila’s “Build, Build, Build” infrastructure program.
In a ceremony last Thursday, the human-resource development arm of the Construction Industry Authority of the Philippines, the Construction Manpower Development Foundation (CMDF), concluded the agreement with Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT).
The joint training program will run for three years, wherein Filipino workers can be trained in-country and abroad by the MLIT. The MLIT will also be collaborating with the Overseas Construction Association of Japan Inc. (Ocaji), to tap Japanese contractors in need of Filipino workers.
“In this collaboration, they will train some here in the Philippines, some in Japan. The workers that will be employed there, in the Japanese projects, will come back after a maximum of three years. Toward the end of the training period, CDMF will retrain the workers to integrate into the Philippine work force then match with construction companies here,” Trade Undersecretary for Competitiveness and Ease of Doing Business Ruth B. Castelo said.
For the workers to be trained in the Philippines, they will undergo three months of training with the CDMF and then they will be matched with large contractors like DMCI, MDC, EEI and Megaworld, which will also do on-site training-cum-employment.
“This is to really benchmark with the Japanese way of instilling discipline in workers in the industry. Their training produces more efficient workers,” Castelo added.
