Iloilo City PESO best in W. Visayas for 2024, vies for Hall of Fame

For the third consecutive year, the Iloilo City Public Employment Service Office (PESO) received recognition as the Best PESO in Western Visayas from the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).

The city will represent the region for the national awards, where they will be vying for the Hall of Fame, in October.

“This is a strong validation of the hard work of PESO Iloilo City and the intensified efforts of our mayor (Jerry Treñas) in making sure that jobs are accessible to all. This is a strong testament to our partnership with our employers,” PESO manager Gabriel Felix Umadhay said in an interview on Tuesday.

PESO Iloilo City’s other awards for 2024 are highest number of registered, referred, and placed job applicants; highest number of DOLE programs implemented and job vacancies posted; best career development support program; best JobStart Philippines Program; Extra Mile Award: Child Labor Elimination Program; and highest National Skills Registration Program recorded applicants.

It is now elevated to the Hall of Fame Award for the most number of DOLE programs implemented, and the most number of registered, referred, and placed job applicants.

“The most important of these are the highest job recruitments, highest job referrals, highest job vacancies and highest placed job applicants. These are the four essential functions of the office,” Umadhay said.

The PESO Employment Information System indicated 13,069 job applicants from 20 job fairs, 68 local recruitment activities, and 21 special recruitment activities conducted by PESO Iloilo City in 2024.

Further, there were 18,022 job applicants based on the performance reporting system of DOLE in the same year.

Umadhay said under the new administration of Mayor-elect Raisa Treñas-Chu, the agency looks forward to attracting big firms and expanding the implementation of livelihood programs to make them more accessible.

“Our goal is to produce more employers rather than employees. We will support startup companies, especially the innovative ones. We will provide free training. We will start negosyo (business) training in July to incubate more proposals, which we will use as data to request funds from DOLE,” Umadhay said. (By Perla Lena, PNA)