The Employees’ Compensation Commission (ECC) said yesterday it is now ready to accept applications for cash assistance from workers, including those affected by the coronavirus disease 2019, for this year.
“We suspended in September but for 2021, since we have a new budget, we are ready to open again for cash assistance applications,” ECC executive director Stella Zipagan-Banawis said in a virtual press conference.
The ECC suspended the cash assistance application process for workers submission last year due to lack of funds.
Zipagan-Banawis added that they ran out of funds as the number of applications they received reached over 8,000.
Of the number, she said they were able to process 4,000, since many of the applicants were not able to comply with the documentary requirements.
“We are communicating with them to complete the requirements since they can apply for 2021,” she added.
ECC is a government corporation attached to the Department of Labor and Employment for policy coordination and guidance. It was created by virtue of Presidential Decree No. 626, as amended, and as embodied in Title II of Book IV of the Labor Code of the Philippines.
It is mandated to provide appropriate compensation to workers and their dependents in case of work-related contingencies, such as sickness, injury, disability, or death.
Meanwhile, there are a lot of job opportunities available in four sectors as the country continues to recover from the economic impact of Covid-19, Labor Assistant Secretary Dominique Tutay said, adding that these are the health sector, construction sector, business process outsourcing (BPO), and government agencies.
“First, for the health sector, the available jobs are for nurses, medical technicians, medical practitioners, and pharmacists. These are what we are seeing in the different job boards with vacancies being offered,” she said.
Tutay added that there are a lot of opportunities in the construction sector due to the government’s ongoing Build Build Build (BBB) program.
“Those needed are civil engineers, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, and architects. We also posting job vacancies on the Trabaho, Negosyo, Kabuhayan (TNK) website,” she added.
She also said the most resilient sector in terms of job opportunities during this time of a pandemic is the BPO sector.
“The very resilient sector is BPO. The Information Technology, customer service representative, programmers, encoders, and also app and game developers are in demand,” she said.
She added that there are a lot of vacancies in government offices. “The Civil Service Commission had conducted job fairs for the different vacancies in government agencies,” Tutay added.*PNA
