Chip firms recall workers as global orders perk up

Electronics and semiconductor firms have started recalling 7,000 workers that were earlier displaced due to the global economic crisis.

This was confirmed yesterday by Philippine Economic Zone Authority (Peza) director general Lilia de Lima at the sidelines of the 2009 Investors Recognition Day held at the World Trade Center in Pasay City where she shared news coming from electronics companies that buyers abroad have started to renew contracts and would intend to get workers who were ordered forced leave.

This was the feedback given to her by companies mostly located in the Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, and Quezon) during the Electronics Industry General Membership meeting last week.

These companies were the first to be affected by the global financial slowdown and among the sectors who have laid off thousands of workers, she added.

In Calabarzon alone, over 16,000 workers were retrenched at the start of the year. But with business getting better toward the end of the 1st quarter, over 9,000 were now reporting back to work.

De Lima hopes to see the remaining displaced workers back on their jobs by the next half of the year.–Ayen Infante, Daily Tribune