Ms. Jeanette D. Tana, Chief of the Institute’s Employment Welfare Division, prepared this paper during her participation as Visiting Researcher to the Foreign Researcher Short-Term Invitation Program of the Japan Institute for Policy and Training in Tokyo .

The paper looks into the efficacy and effectiveness of Japan ’s public employment service offices in dispensing employment and welfare benefits.  It specifically identifies critical elements in the operationalization of Japan ’s Public Employment Service Offices (JPESOs), highlights their strengths and weaknesses, and provides recommendations on how to improve Philippine PESOs.

Insights and lessons drawn from the JPESOs experience, which could improve the delivery of employment facilitation services among Philippine PESOs, include the following:

• Improvement in the software and hardware used in job search devices

• Proactive job solicitation and placement of job seekers through the attendance of PESO managers to meetings of employers and through close coordination with local chambers of commerce

• Continuous capability building of PESO staff

• Provision of service counters for special groups of unemployed persons

• Establishing PESOs in key strategic areas in the country