How workers fared in 2009

AS far as the economy is concerned, most of us probably regard 2009 as a year we’re happy to put behind us. By the key yardsticks of “presyo”, “hanapbuhay” and “kita” (prices, jobs and incomes)—the three economic variables that affect the common citizen most directly—we have definitely seen better times.

Luckily, prices were more stable (average annual inflation rate: 3.2 percent) than in the previous year 2008 (9.8 percent), a year marked by world price volatility in petroleum and food commodities. To a large extent though, the good news of slower average price inflation in 2009 was due to the bad news of a slow economy. This bad news was more clearly reflected in the dramatic slowdown in economic activity (and therefore incomes), and the continued downturn in the overall jobs situation. I will focus here on the latter, especially as the National Statistics Office has just released a summary report on the labor and employment situation in 2009.

Big picture

The economy produced less than a million net new jobs in 2009 (971,000), not enough to catch up with the 1.2 million increase in the labor force. This tells us that there were more jobless people in 2009 than in the year before; from the statistics, one could calculate around 115,000 more. That would readily translate into as many families (or nearly a million individuals) falling deeper into poverty. One can thus surmise that poverty incidence, officially recorded to have risen since 2003, must have further worsened last year.

The number of working-age Filipinos rose by about 1.5 million (from 57.8 million in 2008 to 59.3 million in 2009). Furthermore, a larger percentage of them sought jobs (i.e. joined the labor force) compared to the previous year (up to 64 percent, from 63.6 percent the year before). This suggests that harder times had driven those who normally would not have sought work to do so.

Four out of every 10 employed workers worked only part time or less than 40 hours a week. There is some good news: The proportion of underemployed, or those who indicated that their jobs were not enough and would like to work more, went down slightly from 19.3 to 19.1 percent. Still, about one in every five workers continues to have a job that is inadequate for his/her needs.

Job breakdown

Where did the jobs come from in 2008? Who were the employed? Half of the total jobs were in the services sector, spanning personal services, business services and government services. NSO reports that the biggest job contributors in services were wholesale and retail trade, and repair of motor vehicles, motorcycles and personal and household goods. Those working in wholesale and retail trade were mostly in the latter, which covers much of informal sector buy-and-sell or vending activities. Meanwhile, more than a third of all workers (35 percent) were employed in agriculture, while 14.5 percent were employed in industry.

Laborers and unskilled workers made up the largest group (32.5 percent), followed by farmers, forestry workers and fishermen (16.7 percent). This was followed by management and supervisory workers including proprietors (13.5 percent), and service and sales workers (10.5 percent).

More than half of employed workers were wage and salary workers, and further good news is that this percentage had improved somewhat from 52.3 to 53.3 percent. Self-employed and unpaid family workers thus made up a slightly smaller percentage of than before (comprising 35 and 12 percent of workers, respectively).

Jobless profile

What were the jobless like?

Of the 2.8 million who were jobless in 2009, the bulk (almost two-thirds) were men. Young people under 34 years old made up four out of every five unemployed workers. Most of the unemployed had received no more than a high school education; in fact, only a third got to complete high school while the rest either had no formal education, finished only elementary, or failed to complete high school.

We thus need to look well beyond the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry—often cited as our hope for dealing with joblessness—if we are to provide hope to our unemployed, the bulk of whom do not even qualify for those jobs. I have always pointed to agriculture and tourism as the real hope for our jobless. It is these sectors, and the whole array of other economic activities tied to them, that could readily take up the greater part of our unemployed Filipinos, who are mostly young and undereducated.

We need government to be intent in finding ways to dramatically expand these opportunities in agriculture and tourism if we are to dramatically reduce poverty in our midst. This, to me, is what the platforms of the various presidential candidates should be very clear, concrete and forthright about. –Cielito Habito, Philippine Daily Inquirer

Comments welcome at chabito@ateneo.edu