The Special Program for the Employment of Students of the Department of Labor and Employment got a boost yesterday with the signing of a memorandum of agreement between the DOLE and fast food firm McDonald’s Philippines, a press release from the agency said.

SPES is intended for students and out-of-school youth, and the latest MOA ensures jobs for close to 4,000 beneficiaries, the DOLE said.

Picking up from the successful pilot-testing of SPES in 44 McDonald’s restaurants in the latter part of 2011, Golden Arches Development Corporation, McDonald's franchise holder in the Philippines, renewed its partnership with the DOLE, by rolling out the program to all McDonald’s restaurants in the country, the press release said.

Ginebra exec urging farmers
to grow cassava in idle lands

An officer of Ginebra San Miguel, Incorporated yesterday urged farmers in Negros Occidental to use idle lands as cassava planting for alternative source of income.

Redentor Galura, manager of the Agricultural Supply Development of GSMI said their company needs 50,000 tons of cassava annually.

Galura was at the inauguration of the P15-million mechanical dryer at the Bago City Distillery of GSMI yesterday.

‘Demographic ‘sweet spot’
to boost PHL 2015 growth’

The Philippine economy will get additional boost from its citizens by 2015 as it enters the demographic “sweet spot” or average age of Filipinos 22.2 years, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. said in a press release yesterday.

Tetangco said a United Nations study showed that the country is the last major economy in Asia that will benefit from a period wherein bulk of the population is of working age and has the capacity to spend.

“Studies have showed that extended period of accelerated growth have coincided with the country’s entering this period,” Tetangco said during the last day of the two-day Philippines Investment Forum: The New Beginning in Makati City.