News Release

Department of Labor and Employment

3 September 2014
Baldoz announces NWPC's National Productivity Convention on 16 October

Labor and Employment Secretary Rosalinda Dimapilis-Baldoz yesterday the holding

of the National Wages and Productivity Commissions biennial National Productivity
Convention on 16 October 2014, at a venue still to be determined.

"Early on, local and international productivity experts and practitioners have
expressed interest and desire to join the 16 October National Productivity
Convention and we at the DOLE are excited," said Baldoz in her announcement.

Held every two years, the National Productivity Convention is aimed at stimulating
productivity growth, especially in the countrys micro, small, and medium enterprises
(MSMEs) that employ about two-thirds of the Filipino workforce.

The productivity and competitiveness of MSMEs need to be improved since they

constitute 99.7 percent of the countrys registered businesses employing a majority
of the workforce. With increased productivity through innovation, MSMEs would be
able to provide more jobs and, thus, empower more workers to contribute to growth,
Baldoz said.

The convention theme is Productivity and Innovation: Empowering Workers.

Sustaining Enterprises.

The two-day Convention is a major undertaking of the NWPC, an attached agency

of the Department of Labor and Employment. It aims to communicate the importance
of productivity and innovation through expanding workers knowledge and skills and
building sustainable competitive enterprises, said Baldoz.

The labor and employment chief observed that the Convention is very timely, coming
as it does when productivity and innovation at the local front are boosting the global
competitiveness of the country's MSMEs.

This is because of our reforms to strengthen enterprise productivity and

competitiveness," she said, explaining that the DOLE has strengthened and
expanded its Productivity Improvement Program (PIP) for MSMEs, for the first time
linking minimum wage and productivity wage increases and benefits under the under
the Two-Tier Wage System (TTWS).

On this, Baldoz said the NWPC has started issuing advisories on the establishment
of PIPs in all regions, including the conduct of compliance assessments in
companies with PIPs.

"In 2013, for the first time, 359 companies have been issued certificates of
compliance on the PIPs," she said.

To boost productivity, the DOLE has also converged the program on labor
management cooperation of the National Conciliation and Mediation Board and the
PIPs of the NWPC, resulting to the establishment of 71 LMCs for Productivity in
2013 and 163 during the first half of 2014.

"We have expanded productivity-based pay schemes in Voluntary Codes of Good

Practices between workers and management towards self-regulation, including in
Collective Bargaining Agreements," said Baldoz.

Also for the first time, Baldoz said the DOLE, Temasek Foundation, and Nanyang
Polytechnic of Singapore implemented an agreement for an expansive training of
productivity specialists including workers, employers, and other government
agencies, such as the DTI and DOST. Under the 2013 partnership agreement, 120
officials and technical staff of the DOLE, NWPC, and RTWPBs, as well as a select
number of productivity beneficiaries from the private sector participated in an
intensive training on productivity concepts, measurements, tools, technologies, and
best practices to help intensify and expand the productivity movement in the country.

Last April, the partners launched another capacity-building project on innovation and
enterprise development, attended by 110 participants consisting of DOLE-NWPC
senior officials, program managers, implementers, strategic partners from the DOST,
DTI, DA and DOT, and social partners representing labor, employers, and the
academe.

"This is by far the largest training delegation the Philippines has sent abroad. We are
expecting that the training participants will implement projects that will push to a
higher level the advocacy for productivity, innovation, and enterprise development,
as well as productivity improvement programs in their respective organizations,"
Baldoz said.

For this years convention, NWPC Executive Director Criselda Sy said that
productivity experts from the countrys labor, management, and education sectors,
along with their counterparts from international organizations, will discuss best
practices in productivity improvements and the challenges and strategies in building
sustainable enterprises, as well as expanding workers skill, through productivity and
innovation.

The Productivity Olympics is a national competition of best productivity improvement

programs focused on people development and business excellence of MSMEs.

End/letmaring