No to a 4/10 work week

The proposal to impose a four-day, 10-hour work week nationwide, both for government and the private sector is both assailable and laughable.

Quezon City Rep. Winston Castelo’s bill would effectively declare every Friday a non-working national holiday, and ruin both economic and labor productivity.

Considering the growing number of adult Filipinos who are out of jobs, we should be putting more people to productive work, not depriving them of potential gainful employment.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has even engaged extra workers to process new passport applications even during Saturdays. This is something all government offices that provide much-needed public services should follow. Enlist additional personnel in order to stay open on Saturdays. You give people more jobs and improve services at the same time.

Among the agencies that ought to stay open on Saturdays are the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, Social Security System and the Government Service Insurance System.

These offices have long lines of people waiting to be served every weekday. People lose a lot of productive time and money while idly queuing for hours, even days. If these agencies hire more staff to conduct business on Saturdays, those lines will be reduced by at least one-fifth.

Our unusually high unemployment and underemployment rates should drive government and the private sector to constantly find ways to provide more people gainful work every day.

According to the latest Labor Force Survey, the Philippines has a population of 61.778 million who are 15 years old and over and potentially productive. However, only 64 percent of them, or 39.691 million, are “officially” considered by government as part of the labor force.

Of the 39.691 million, some 25 percent, or 10 million able-bodied Filipinos, are either totally without jobs (2.871 million), or desperately looking for more work (7.126 million). –Ernesto F. Herrera, Manila Times