THE Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) will be teaming up with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) to prepare industries and the labor force for the disruption brought about by automation.

In an interview with BusinessWorld, Acting Labor Assistant Secretary and Bureau of Local Employment (BLE) Director Dominique R. Tutay said that after signing a Memorandum of Understanding with the DTI and TESDA earlier this month, the agencies will begin moving to equip industries and workers for the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution.

“We have had an initial meeting and we partnered with SkillsFuture Singapore to help us out with this initiative,” she told BusinessWorld. “This is to develop a road map for the Philippines in preparation for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.”

The initiative will focus on upskilling and reskilling employees in order to keep up with technology-driven disruption.

“It’s going to have plant-level training, that’s part of it. There’s going to be benchmarking of industries and a labor market intelligence component. So it’s identifying what skills are needed (for) the fourth industrial revolution in specific sectors,” Ms. Tutay said.

She added that the agencies are currently identifying priority sectors under the road map. Ms. Tutay added: “We will start engaging with them once the blueprint is already in place.” — Gillian M. Cortez

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