Are you a small or medium entrepreneur? Let productivity toolbox help you. This package of inter-agency services designed to enhance the productivity levels of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) will visit your business place for a realistic assessment of the productivity condition and then recommend solutions.Initiated by the Department of Labor and Employment Region XI through Regional Director Jalilo Dela Torre, the team of experts from RTWPB, TESDA, NEDA, DTI, DOST, DA, DOT and Davao Region Tourism Council, LGU, academe, PMAP and DCCCII comprise the “toolbox”.
“The team walks through the shop floor and assesses the conditions, and determines the steps and measures that the MSME owner has to take in order to increase workers’ productivity and hopefully hire more workers,” Dela Torre said.
The project aims to target the MSMEs, particularly those belonging to the following priority industries: banana, mango, seaweeds, wood, coconut, livestock and poultry, agri-machineries and tourism. This project will be piloted in Davao City for a period of one year before it will be implemented in the regional level.
Ruby Badilles of Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board 11 stressed that “The MSMEs play a vital role in the economy. They comprise 99.6% of total establishments and accounts for 61% of total employment. However, they are deluged with many challenges in sustaining their business. They lack access to finance and markets. They lack productivity and efficiency making them unable to grow and sustain profitability. In addition, efforts to develop the MSMEs are not coordinated, harmonized and sustained by concerned agencies. The productivity toolbox can be a venue for harmonizing and coordinating all development efforts for MSMEs”.
Productivity Toolbox was launched on December 20, 2010 with the presence of the Honorable Secretary Rosalinda Dimapilis-Baldoz as one of the activities during the “Social Partnership at Work” as part of DOLE 11’s month-long 77th anniversary celebration of the Department this December on the theme, “Tuwid na Daan sa Tapat na Paglilingkod”.
