Gov’t eyes a million jobs a year

MANILA, Philippines—The country will have at least one million new jobs annually until 2016, the end of the Aquino administration’s term, Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said Monday.

Baldoz said that the Labor department had projected that the country would have a 2.3-percent to 3.2-percent job growth rate annually until 2016 with the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry leading the way in job opportunities.

“That means more than a million additional jobs per year until 2016. That is local. (The) service (sector) would still be the number one industry and then agriculture,” Baldoz said.

She said this projection was based on the data and economic growth projections of the National Economic Development Authority (Neda).

“The BPO will continue to be the main generator of jobs for the next five and a half years and Neda is really working with BPO industry,” Baldoz said.

Baldoz said that in a meeting with trade and education officials, BPO industry leaders gave the assurance that they would hire all of those who finished the government training-for-work program for the BPO and information and communication technology (ICT) sector.

“(It’s a) six-month finishing court on English… They assured that there will be 100 percent absorption of those who would avail (themselves) of the training program,” Baldoz said.

“That’s why Tesda (the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority) has initially allotted P20 million for the training of job applicants for BPO and ICT,” she added.

For 2010, the Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics (BLES) had already registered 1.011 million new jobs as of October, or a 2.8-percent year-on-year growth rate.

“Total employed persons increased to 36.489 million from 35.478 million a year ago indicating a net addition or new employment generation of 1.011 million,” BLES said.

“The latest growth figure represents an improvement from last year’s growth rate of 2.7 percent (or 945,000 newly-employed),” it added.

BLES said the services sector was the growth driver in job generation “expanding by 603,000 or 3.3 percent year-on-year.”

The service industry sub-sectors that grew included wholesale and retail trade (plus 260,000); real estate, renting and business activities (143,000); hotels and restaurants (109,000); health and social work (52,000); private household with employed persons (46,000); and financial intermediation (36,000).

“The quality of employment also improved… as indicated by the strong growth in persons in full-time employment (5.5 percent or plus 1.206 million) and wage and salary employment (4.1 percent or plus 778,000),” BLES said.

“This was accompanied by the decline in persons in part-time employment (minus 0.9 percent or minus 114,000) as well as the proportion of vulnerable employment (self-employed and unpaid family workers) to total employment—from 42.4 percent a year earlier to 42 percent,” it added. –Philip Tubeza, Philippine Daily Inquirer