The Philippines was one of four countries selected for an initial three-year phase of the International
Labour Organization’s Action Programme for Decent Work under an agreement signed in 2002
between the local tripartite partners.1
Promoting youth employment is one target outcome under this
Decent Work Country Programme (DWCP) specifically under Pillar 2: “creating employment
opportunities for men and women.”2
CIDA Philippines through its Private Sector Development Fund provided a grant to pilot-test the youth
employment project in the Philippines. The PYEP project aimed at capacitating relevant stakeholder
institutions to assess the state of the labour markets at both the national and local levels, identifying
employment growth areas that would provide opportunities for current and future youth, and its
various segments. These segments were identified as: (i) students; (ii) the employed youth (including
those that were self-employed); (iii) the unemployed job-seekers; and (iv) those not in the workforce.
Finally, armed with the knowledge of current and potential future opportunities, the project sought to
foster the necessary conditions to realize such opportunities. An important component of this was
recognition of the need to promote entrepreneurialism among the youth and a series of training
modules were introduced and piloted in specific localities designed to encourage youth to think of
themselves as micro entrepreneurs.
Importantly, the project disaggregated the factors and conditions surrounding youth unemployment
from the more general unemployment and underemployment problem facing the Philippines and
fostered the realization among stakeholders that this was indeed a separable problem that required its
own specific set of interventions in order to resolve. Unemployment during a person’s early working
years can discourage a person and reduce self-esteem. This often leads to a lifetime of unemployment
or underemployment and wasted potential for the country.