Palace welcomes decrease in unemployment

THE PALACE on Thursday welcomed improved year-on-year employment statistics, particularly a decrease in unemployment, based on the 2011 Labor Force Survey conducted by the National Statistics Office (NSO).

Mr. Lacierda noted that the improvement is a “collective achievement of different sectors and stakeholders, of the government.”

“We remain confident of continued growth in the business sector and further good news not only in terms of employment but also in our efforts toward education and decreasing inequality through our conditional cash transfer programs,” he added.

Optimism is warranted, he said, as the government is “paving the way for the influx of investments by improving the quality of spending to focus more on activities that will generate jobs.”

Mr. Lacierda made his statement following earlier pronouncements made by the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) immediately after the National Statistics Office (NSO) released the results of the latest Labor Force Survey.

For his part, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary and NEDA Director-General Cayetano W. Paderanga, Jr. attributed the improvement in net employment to the agriculture sector, which contributed 645,000 net workers to post an employment growth of 5.6% in April 2011.

“This supports the second quarter 2011 palay and corn production growth estimates of 14.2% and 70.9%, respectively, by the Bureau of Agriculture Statistics,” said Mr. Paderanga.

Mr. Paderanga also noted that the quality of employment in April this year improved.

“This can be seen in the 5% increase of workers with wages and salaries, 3.5% rise of full-time workers, and the decrease of unemployed youth from 18.8% last year to 16.6% in April 2011,” said Mr. Paderanga.

Apart from the agriculture sector, the number of newly employed persons in the services sector numbered 632,000, or a 3.4% growth from last year.

On the other hand, employment growth in the industry sector slowed down to 2.4%, or around 130,000 net employment, from last year’s high growth of 7.8%.

Mr4. Paderanga also said that the 2.9 million unemployed persons this year was lower by around 228,000 persons compared to the same period last year.

However, the underemployed, or those already working but still expressed the need for more work, went up from 6.3 million (17.8%) in April 2010 to 7.1 million (19.4%) in April 2011.

“While the labor market performance based on the April 2011 Labor Force Survey is considered favorable, the government must still continue to fast-track the implementation of programs and policies that help create employment and improve productivity,” said Mr. Paderanga. — Johanna Paola D. Poblete, Businessworld