BUSINESSMEN yesterday opposed a government agency’s proposal to increase the wages of private-sector employees, saying that would further erode the Philippines’ competitiveness.
“It is wrong,” Donald Dee, chairman emeritus of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said at the launching of the World Investment Report 2009 by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in Ortigas.
Dee said he could not understand why a government official like Romulo Virola, head of the National Statistical Coordination Board, could make a statement such as the one he made on Tuesday.
Virola had said that more Filipinos employed in the private sector would become poorer this year if their wages were not adjusted by December.
But Dee said the Philippines was already suffering from a “difficult labor situation” that was turning off investors.
Efren Leaño, executive director of the Management Services Group of the Board of Investments, said the Philippines had lost some of its competitive advantage because its labor was no longer cheap.
“We are not a cheap labor country anymore,” he said.
“Compared to our neighboring countries, we are more expensive.”
Virola had said earlier that the poverty incidence of 32.9 percent of the population in 2006 could further rise this year because consumer prices were rising faster than wages.
“Unless [private workers] receive a wage adjustment before the end of 2009, many of them might join the ranks of the poor [this year],” he said.
Consumer prices rose by 8.71 percent annually between 2006 and 2008, while inflation hit 8.18 percent in the first half of this year.
By comparison, the minimum wage in the private sector in Metro Manila grew by 4.99 percent, and that for agriculture and non-agriculture workers by 4.47 percent.
“From 2008 to July 2009, the minimum wage did not grow at all,” he said.
“Our poverty reduction program has not exactly been an outstanding success because inflation eroded whatever increase there was in the income of vulnerable groups.” –Roderick T. dela Cruz, Manila Standard Today
World Day for Safety and Health at Work
“Safety and health at work every day!”
Invoke Article 33 of the ILO constitution
against the military junta in Myanmar to carry out the 2021 ILO Commission of Inquiry recommendations against serious violations of Forced Labour and Freedom of Association protocols.
Accept National Unity Government
(NUG) of Myanmar.
Reject Military!
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Monthly Observances:
March – Women’s Role in History Month
April – Month of Planet Earth
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Last Week of March: Protection and Gender Fair Treatment of the Girl Child Week
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Mar 25 – International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transallantic Slave Trade
Mar 27– Earth Hour
Apr 21 – Civil Service Day
Apr 22 – World Earth Day
Apr 28 – World Day for Safety and Health at Work
