Labor Assistant Secretary Dominique Rubia-Tutay served as a panelist during the ‘2022 ASEAN-U.S. Dialogue on Trade and Labor,’ a virtual event organized by the ASEAN-USAID Inclusive Growth in ASEAN through Innovation, Trade, and E-Commerce (IGNITE).

Asec. Rubia-Tutay presented the National Economic Recovery Strategy (NERS) 2021-2022 during the session on ‘Inclusive Approaches to Trade and Economic Recovery’ which highlighted the importance of social dialogue and tripartism among workers, employers, and governments in the promotion of sustainable and resilient trade growth and economic recovery.

NERS is anchored on a whole-of-society approach in restarting the economy, restoring business confidence, upgrading and retooling the workforce, facilitating labor market access, and setting up an enabling environment supported by good governance and infrastructure.

As part of its core strategy under the NERS, the Philippine government worked with the different sectors, including eighteen organizations from the business, labor, and marginalized sectors, as well as development partners such as the International Labour Organization, World Bank and Asian Development Bank, to formulate action plans that will facilitate the restarting of social and economic activities, while also mitigating the ill effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, the economy was able to generate around 4.6 million of employment.

To wrap up this particular session, Chris Kazlaukas from the United States Department of Labor, asked each panelist to share the most important lesson they have learned on the role of tripartism in economic recovery during the pandemic. Asec. Rubia-Tutay underscored the value of different perspectives from all the sectors in the development of solutions to the issues brought about by the health crisis

END/28 March 2022