RP urged to develop package for unemployed

MANILA, Philippines – The country is asked to consider steps towards extending universal social protection to help unemployed persons cope with the impact of the global crisis.

This recommendation was made by Amelita King Dejardin, a senior technical adviser in the Policy Integration and Statistics Department of the International Labour Office, in a paper titled “The Philippine labor market in the aftermath of another crisis.”

Citing a survey result indicating high incidence of hunger among the unemployed amid the crisis, Dejardin said a universal social protection is crucial in reducing workers‚ income insecurity and vulnerability.

“Part of their vulnerability to job loss can be blamed on the absence of an institutionalized system of social protection for the unemployed, and on low, declining real earnings which prohibit savings,” she said.

Dejardin thus raised the need for the country to create “productive, remunerative and fairly stable employment” which is important to sustainable poverty reduction.

She noted that the social assistance programs, such as conditional cash transfers and the PhilHealth indigent program, which are geared for the poorest, the indigent and most vulnerable, while important, are not sufficient to meet their needs.

Such social safety nets are unable to meet the casualties of economic shocks and also leave out many who are just below or just above the poverty line, Dejardin said.

“The millions who are missed by social assistance programmes for the poor and by formal social insurance will have to continue diversifying and intensifying further the use of their labor (women, youth and children), and relying on help from extended family networks, local patrons and local leaders,” she said.

Dejardin said while already many countries in Asia rely on severance payment systems based on labor law as a means for providing workers with basic social security in the event of unemployment, but this is ineffective in times of economic crisis owing to mass bankruptcies.

Thailand and Vietnam have recently established an unemployment insurance system. Likewise, India’s national employment guarantee scheme fairly addresses well the problem of spatial poverty and social exclusion.

“It maybe the time for the Philippines to take a broader and longer-term perspective of its current schemes, and choose the building blocks and instruments that would comprise an effective social protection package,” she said.  –Philexport News and Features (The Philippine Star)