Emphasizing employment generation means opening the widest legitimate channels for all forms of employment, whether in the form of formal wage-or self-employment, whether in firms, homes, or local communities, whether at home or abroad. Work arrangements mutually agreed upon shall also be introduced. Employment generation can also be pursued indirectly by supporting those activities that exploit the country's comparative advantage in more labor-intensive activities, typically involving products and services that are more competitive in the world market.
Exports have learning-by-doing and dynamic comparative advantage aspects. Through active trade policy, exporters learn through time, and their skill sets have evolved and became entrenched into more technologically intensive and higher skills processes. Exports can become an important means of obtaining technological know-how and in turn generate positive spill over effects to other sectors in the economy. This redounds to faster accumulation and innovation, and therefore accelerated growth.
Wider self-employment opportunities shall be afforded by providing credit-access to the poor through microcredit, integrated in a business-service package that includes market matching, technical assistance, and community organizing where necessary. Government will direct wholesale finance institutions - such as the People's Credit and Finance Corporation (PCFC), the Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP), and the Small Business Corporation (SBC) - that deal with microfinance institutions to coordinate with Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Department of Tourism (DOT) and viable microfinance institutions (MFIs) to develop market-based innovative financing schemes to support microenterprises. Government will collaborate with MFIs to use microfinance as a tool for inclusive growth by expanding access by microenterprises and poor households to credit, savings, and other financial services. Innovative market-based financing schemes in support of microenterprises will support government's goal of providing productive employment opportunities to a broad cross-section of the population. Other channels for rapid employment generation shall be opened through programs of community-driven development (CDD), which are linked to poverty-relief, and labor-intensive infrastructure projects of local governments. In providing opportunities for formal or self-employment or access to credit, government shall take particular cognizance of the special needs of women, whose potentially large social contributions to social and economic development are stunted by their domestic and other social circumstances.