Jobless rate to increase

The number of unemployed will continue to increase this year if growth will not exceed seven percent according to Edgardo Lacson, president of the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP).

Lacson said to counteract this expected trend, local investors must be encouraged to engaged in new businesses so that more Filipinos will be employed.

Lacson said that for growth to trickle down to the poor and the jobless, the economy should grow beyond seven percent.

He said that the current growth rate, already at seven percent reduced unemployment rate by .2 percent which “is not enough.”

“The creation of new jobs is very important,” Lacson said.

Lacson added the need to protect startup enterprises by local investors whose capital are more stable.

“BPOs (business process outsourcing) is cost-driven but they can move out in two days,” he said.

Lacson said while the Philippines does begin to attract investments in manufacturing, it is not getting enough because of high power costs unlike in other countries where industries are being subsidized by government and not by users which pass on the cost to their products and services.

Lacson said this year employment prospects in the BPO sector would still be rosy following a recent agreement by the Business Processing Association of the Philippines with its counterpart in India, NASSCOM where the two would collaborate on getting BPO firms here and sending workers to India.

Lacson added that deployment of overseas Filipino workers would remain stable thus ensuring a steady inflow of dollar remittances.

Lacson said the Philippines has an investment climate conducive to investors and locators to set up shop here and generate jobs.

Lacson also said the private-public partnership (PPP) projects would have multiplier effect on the economy, generating jobs across all sectors.

Still, Lacson said ECOP “dreams” of bringing down unemployment rate to 3 percent to make the number of unemployed manageable.

“It’s easy to dream about it.”

Unemployment rate in Philippines decreased to 6.8 percent in October of 2012 from 7 percent in July of 2012.

Lacson said unemployment could hover around this level this year once PPP projects roll out this year. –Malaya