Jobless rate seen to worsen

Around 700,000 college graduates will enter the labor force starting next week, thus raising the spectre of more and more people going jobless, the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines said on Thursday.

“It’s not easy to dampen the hopes of new graduates but based on these data we do not see college graduates finding jobs right away,” said Alan Tanjusay, TUCP spokesman.

The unemployment rate rose to 7.5 percent in January 2014 from 7.1 percent in January 2013, by the Philippine Statistics Authority.

There are about 2.96 million without a job out of 39.41 million labor force in January 2014 while 2.86 million were jobless and 37.94 million were employed in the same month last year, TUCP said.

Gerard Seno, executive vice president of the Associated Labor Unions-TUCP pointed at the ineffective implementation of job-generating industry-led roadmaps specifically the manufacturing and agriculture sector as one of the major causes of joblessness.

“It suggests that many (foreign or domestic) investors are reluctant to invest because the concerned government actors failed to act on the high cost of electricity, the lack of basic modern infrastructures, rampant smuggling, changing rules, declining peace and order, graft and corruption and judicial red tape,” he said.

“The PPP program which was intended to generate millions of jobs, for example, is not factoring in for reasons we do not know. This is indeed a big challenge primarily for the Economic Cluster and for President Aquino who have less than three years left in office,” he stressed.

The efforts of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) such as the job fairs, are not complemented by other government agencies to make a significant gain in employment, the TUCP said.

Labor secretary Roslinda Baldoz said the January 2014 Labor Force Survey of the Philippine Statistics Authority does not show the real picture because it excluded data from Region 8.

“The PSA calculated the January 2013 employment indicators using data that excluded the region to make them comparable with the January 2014 LFS.”

Baldoz claimed that the result of the survey is mixed. “The employment level in the January 2014 survey round is 36.420 million, equivalent to 92.5 percent of the labor force of 39.389 million, which increased by 476,000 (1.2 percent) from the January 2013 labor force of 38.137 million.”

“The increase in employment is 0.8 percent, or 283,000, from 36.137 million in January 2013 to 36.420 in January 2014.

“Beyond the quantity, however, we want more to focus on the quality of employment.

“Since July 2012, when the employment structure seemed to exhibit a palpable shift, we have been monitoring the quality of employment and are pleased that it is being sustained as indicated by labor and employment indicators, such as, for example, the number of wage and salary workers, which increased in four years: 2010 (19.626 million); 2011 (20.538 million); 2012 (21.492 million); and 2013 (22.136 million). –Vito Barcelo, Manila Standard Today