Over 500,00 jobs are expected to be offered to Filipinos after President Ferdinand 'Bongbong' Marcos Jr. secured an investment pledge from ride-hailing service company Grab Philippines, the Office of the Presidential Communication Office (PCO) announced on Thursday, February 2.
In a press release, the PCO said Anthony Tan, the chief executive officer of Grab Holdings Inc., made the commitment during his meeting with Marcos.
The two officials discussed the modernization plan of Grab for this year, it said.
"Well, that is what we need. At the very start of all of this, we had always stressed that what we have to do is create jobs right now. Because so many businesses closed, so many people really have no place to go, even the OFWs. So we need to find jobs,” Marcos said as quoted by the PCO.
According to the PCO, the President has expressed interest in the proposal as he noted that the two million jobs that were created last year helped ease the unemployment rate in the country.
In the latest data from the Philippines Statistics Authority (PSA), the total number of jobless Filipinos has declined to 2.18 million in November 2022 from 2.24 million recorded in October 2022.
“That’s why I’m in a hurry. If we can roll this out as quickly as possible. And I know the way Grab moves, they move very, very quickly. Because you’ve done it so many times before. In the scale, you don’t have to scale it. You’ve scaled it already,” Marcos said.
