Around 100,000 jobs are expected to be created in the proposed revival of the local salt industry, according to the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).
In a virtual news conference on Thursday, Labor Assistant Secretary Dominique R. Tutay said they are now in talks with representatives from the said industry to craft the road map for the development of the sector.
“They are saying about 20,000 direct jobs will be generated and another 80,000 indirect jobs in case their agenda will be pushed,” Tutay said.
She noted among the concerns of the local salt industry is how to improve its productivity with the use of technology as well as have better access to the supply chain.
“There are a number of wish lists they have to achieve, especially concerning other government agencies,” Tutay said.
The labor official said they hope the next administration will consider the implementation of the road map to boost the country’s agriculture sector and create more jobs.
“We found out that there are 14,000 uses of salt here in the country. And what is unfortunate is we import salt instead of harnessing the local industry. We have so many shorelines, which can be utilized for the said purpose,” Tutay said.
Aside from the salt industry, she said they will also urge the next administration to also focus on other key employment generating sectors such as the Information Technology and Business Process Outsourcing (IT-BPO), agriculture, digital work and manufacturing.
Tutay said the sectors would help the National Employment Recovery Strategy (NERS) task force in its goal of generating over a million jobs.
She said the NERS task force is currently working with stakeholders in finalizing its strategy on how it could achieve its job creation target.
“We hope (the strategy) will be complete before we could present it in the upcoming National Employers Conference in July. That is the target date of ECOP (Employers Confederation of the Philippines),” Tutay said.