MANILA — The upskilling of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the Philippines continues as the Asian Development Bank (ADB), in partnership with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), launched the second phase of the SkillsUpNet program on Tuesday.

SkillsUpNet Philippines (SUN PH) is a skills development funding scheme that offers competitive grants to networks of employers so they can train their workforce based on the evolving demands of their businesses to drive productivity and growth.

Phase 1, which ran from June 2021 to December 2023, provided P15.4 million in grants to five employer networks and trained 671 workers, including 319 women in priority sectors, namely: Creative Industry Animation, Agribusiness, particularly the coffee industry, IT-BPM, Construction, and Tourism.

SUN PH 2 aims to further scale its impact by targeting more regions and additional sectors such as renewable energy, particularly electric vehicles, logistics and supply chain, as well as bamboo industry ventures.

“We let the employer decide what kind of trainings they should provide, who should get the training from their workforce, and who should provide the training for their workers as well,” said Bilal Khan Muhammad, the Social Sector Economist of the ADB’s Human and Social Development Sector.

To participate, MSMEs must form a network of at least 10 enterprises within the same sector
and region. Member enterprises can get P1 million to P5 million worth of grants for the short-term skills training program.

TESDA Secretary Jose Francisco Benitez said this type of support is key to empowering MSMEs, which comprise of 99.5 percent of business establishments in the Philippines and 60 percent of the country’s workforce.

“Many of them do not have the bandwidth or the cash flows to create the kind of skills and training that they might need to either optimize, create more efficiencies, or to increase their revenues and returns, particularly in a terrain where new technology is emerging, new networks are emerging because of new technology,” said Benitez.

For DTI Secretary Maria Cristina Roque, not only will the program help prevent job displacement due to new technologies and increasing automation, it is also a way for workers to receive better pay.

“Siyempre the better they become, the higher their salary also whether here locally and also globally. And then a lot of investors will also come in but they’re also looking for talents talaga so that’s something we’re really going to focus on,” added Roque.

To ensure inclusivity, there are also certain grant conditions:
- 10 percent of trainees should be new jobseekers
- All employees should have access to trainings irrespective of status of contract
- Minimum targets for female employees participating in the training programs
- Equal opportunity for members of the LGBTQ community and Persons With Disabilities

The SUN PH 2 will be implemented starting February 2025 up to November 2026.

But the ADB hopes it would empower MSMEs and make them see the importance of eventually investing on their own in the continued skills training of their workforce as a way to future-proof their businesses.

“That’s the big challenge, right? There are jobs that we sometimes don’t even know exist yet but training has to anticipate these emerging job demands in the green economy, digital industries and in advanced manufacturing,” said Karin Schelzig, the Director of ADB’s Human and Social Development Sector.