Jollibee Group champions equitable employment, growth opportunities for minorities

Through its partnership with provincial and local government units, the Jollibee Group is able to promote a more diverse and inspiring workforce with senior citizens. Evangeline Apolis (center), 76, works at the Burger King store in Quezon City - CONTRIBUTED PHOTOS

The pandemic has created a “scarring effect” among Filipino youth workers, a Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas study in 2023 found. Whereas the country has effectively curbed the youth unemployment rate from 17.6 percent in 2009 to 13.6 percent in 2019, the lockdown impeded the youth’s learning development and in turn, their ability to increase their earning potential.

The same was true for working populations deemed vulnerable during the pandemic due to their age and health conditions: senior citizens and persons with disability (PWDs). While employment opportunities have remained elusive for them, the circumstances of the lockdown have made it doubly hard to find suitable employment—and most of them are still reeling from its effects to this day.

Another sector badly hit by the disruption in market flow is smallholder farmers, who are still recovering from the series of losses they’ve incurred.

How then do we ensure that these vulnerable working populations won’t have to suffer in the next economic disruption?

Non-profit organization Philippine Business for Education (PBEd), founded by Filipino CEOs, in its statement on the state of workforce development in the country, said that in order for marginalized workers to continue adapting and evolving with the changes brought by labor market disruptions, opportunities for work integration must remain open.

Empowering underprivileged youth

While laws promoting and enforcing these minorities’ employment welfare and rights lag behind—a bill mandating the employment of senior citizens who have the capacity and desire to work or be re-employed, for example, is still pending—some companies are taking a proactive stance in ensuring the youth, senior citizens, and PWDs can contribute to the economy while equipping themselves with relevant skills.

Jollibee Group Foundation (JGF), the social development arm of the Jollibee Group, has already taken on youth empowerment initiatives as early as 2005 with its Access, Curriculum, and Employability (ACE) Scholarship Program. This program provides educational support to underprivileged youth through college scholarships in two tracks: agriculture and quick service restaurant operations. To date, JGF has given scholarships to 2,754 young Filipinos.

The inaugural batch of youth trainees under the Jollibee Group Foundation’s Access, Curriculum, and Employability (ACE) Program and Youthworks PH has begun their 3-month on-the-job training on quick-service restaurant operations in select stores in Cebu of Jollibee, Chowking, and Greenwich.

In August, JGF and the Jollibee Group partnered with PBEd, the Primary Structures Educational Foundation, Inc. – School of Knowledge for Industrial Labor, Leadership, and Service (PSEFI-SKILLS), and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID on the workforce development initiative called YouthWorks PH.

Youthworks PH provides training programs for youth not in education, employment, or training (NEET). Under the partnership, the Jollibee Group and JGF provide trainees with on-the-job training on quick service restaurant operations in select stores of the Jollibee Group, including allowances and accommodation.

“Our partnership for the YouthWorks PH program is anchored on our shared commitment with the Jollibee Group to support underprivileged youth to gain access to relevant education and eventually have an opportunity to improve their lives with gainful employment,” said JGF President Gisela Tiongson.

Apart from YouthWorks, the Jollibee Group has partnered with the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) on the Special Program for Employment of Students (SPES) that will provide short-term job opportunities in the quick-service restaurant industry for 900 underprivileged students, out-of-school youth, and dependents of displaced workers in the Philippines.

The 900 youth beneficiaries will be on top of the over 800 youths who had been provided with short-term employment by the Jollibee Group under the SPES since 2015.

Supporting the future of agriculture

For the agriculture track of the JGF’s ACE Program, the foundation has partnered with several organizations such as Don Bosco Technical College in providing scholarships on agro-entrepreneurship to underprivileged youth. The foundation also establishes Agro-Enterprise Resource Centers (AERCs) in various locations in the country.

Through this scholarship and resource centers, the JGF can encourage more young people to look at farming as a viable source of livelihood, thereby cultivating a new breed of Filipino agro-entrepreneurs to carry the agriculture industry forward. This is a significant move towards ensuring the sustainability of the local agriculture industry and the welfare of farmers, who are the backbone of sectors like food and beverage and hospitality and a lifeline in the nation’s food security plan.

JGF agro-entrepreneurship youth scholars are equipped with future-proof and sustainable skills that will help them scale up and become key figures in the country’s food security plan in the long run.

The JGF also empowers smallholder farmers, including youth farmers nationwide through its Farmer Entrepreneurship Program (FEP), which equips smallholder farmers with leadership and technical skills to bolster their sustainable livelihood. Through FEP, farmers learn the clustering approach and become organized farmer groups or cooperatives that become direct suppliers of high-quality produce to institutional buyers such as the Jollibee Group.

Since 2009, thirty (30) farmer groups from 45 cities and municipalities in 15 provinces of the Philippines have supplied 12 million kilos of vegetables directly to the Jollibee Group. This amounts to more than P600 million in sales to smallholder farmers.

Promoting inclusive employment

In 2019, the Jollibee Group made headlines after teaming up with the city governments of Manila and Pasay to provide short-term employment to senior citizens and PWDs in some of its stores. The program had to be put on pause during the pandemic to prioritize these vulnerable groups’ safety but has since resumed last year.

“Working on this program in the past few years has allowed us to see how our elderly and differently abled individuals have appreciated the opportunity to find gainful employment,” said Ruth Angeles, Chief Human Resources Officer, JFC Philippines and Head, Global Organization, Leadership, & Culture, Jollibee Group.

Karl Joven Florido, deaf, works at Jollibee Commonwealth in Quezon City. This is his first-ever job and is grateful for the opportunity to find gainful employment in the city where he lives.

Jollibee Group’s inclusive employment program has since expanded in Pasig, Quezon City, and the entire Rizal Province, with hundreds more qualified senior citizens and PWDs now able to find employment at Jollibee, Chowking, Greenwich, and Burger King stores. As of September, 213 senior citizens and 139 PWDs are employed in various stores of the Jollibee Group.

As industries continue to evolve with businesses taking the leap to technologically advanced and sustainability-focused practices, employees are required to upskill, and even reskill, to remain competitive. Companies like Jollibee Group ensure that no determined individual is left behind without access to pathways to aid them in pursuing better employment opportunities.

For more information, please visit JGF,Jollibee Group