President José Antonio Kast presented the National Strategy for Investment-Driven Labor Demand (Enadi) this Thursday in La Pintana, according to Emol. The plan aims to identify in advance which workers public and private construction projects will need, so they can be trained before positions open.
The event took place at the construction site for the future Metro Line 9 maintenance facility. The central idea is simple: if you know months in advance that a construction project near your home will hire welders or machine operators, you have time to prepare. Today, that notice generally does not reach people.
To achieve this, Enadi will connect companies, contractors and government agencies. Together, they will need to specify four things: the required worker profiles, the number of people, the location and the date. With that information, the government intends to adjust its training, certification and job placement programs in time (the work of connecting job seekers with those offering vacancies).
Labor Minister Tomás Rau summarized the objective this way: "We need to know which workers it will need and prepare people before the time comes to hire." He also warned that, without coordination, construction projects fall behind, positions remain vacant and many people remain unemployed.
Rau explained that knowing the total number of people a project will employ is not enough. It is necessary to distinguish how many will be new hires and what profiles they will need. He cited Line 9, where 22,000 people are expected to participate, and stressed the importance of knowing what share of that figure represents new hires.
Kast, for his part, pointed to the lack of advance notice to local residents. "There is no advance notice. The community is not informed," he said. According to the president, early information could allow someone to take a short course and become certified before applying for work on the project.
The Ministries of Public Works and Women are also participating in the strategy. Their role, according to Kast, is to link the execution of investment projects with job creation and open up more opportunities for women and young people.
The new plan joins other government programs, such as "Chile despega" and the so-called "Modo empleo." Emol's report does not specify implementation timelines, a budget or which regions or projects, apart from Line 9, will be included in an initial phase.
"All the investment applications we are receiving today will translate into formal jobs," Kast said at the close of the launch.
