Angara bats for inclusion of senior citizens, housewives in digital skills training amid pandemic

Senator Sonny Angara on Wednesday proposed digital skills training that would include not only the youth but also senior citizens and housewives who are looking for job opportunities amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

"There are countries like Sweden that are training their senior citizens on digital skills. We have many people who retired early and are still capable of being productive," Angara, chair of the Senate committee on finance, said in a statement.

"The good thing with digital careers is that many of these do not require a full-time commitment. It’s at your pleasure, you work from home, so it’s a very ideal situation for different types of workers such as housewives, senior citizens and people looking for temporary work arrangements," he added.

Last May, Angara filed Senate Bill 1469, which seeks to support the growth and development of digital careers in the Philippines.

The senator underscored that a whole-of-government approach is needed in preparing Filipinos for the new normal which will require at least basic technological knowledge.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has fast tracked the shift of businesses and organizations to online and digital. A lot of Filipinos have lost their jobs due to retrenchments because businesses need to survive and they could no longer afford to operate on a business as usual basis," he said.

Angara said the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, Commission on Higher Education, Department of Education, and the Department of Information and Communications should be in-charge of equipping the people with skills and providing the necessary infrastructures to open up digital opportunities.

The job-matching task shall be under the Department of Labor and Employment, he added.

The common digital careers mentioned by the senator involve transcription and data entry; customer service and technical support; online teaching and tutoring; content creation; digital marketing; and medical coding and billing, among others. — BM, GMA News