World Bank: PHL gov’t should create more, better jobs in agri and manufacturing

The Philippine government should intensify its job creation efforts, particularly in the agriculture and manufacturing sectors, to alleviate poverty and make economic growth more inclusive, according to a World Bank report released Monday.

World Bank’s Philippine Economic Update (PEU) highlighed the need to address the jobs challenge, especially after Typhoon Yolanda left a wide swathe of destruction in the Central Philippines in November last year.

This should be done along with timely and sustainable reconstruction in affected areas to help disaster survivors get back on their feet as well as mitigate future risks from calamities, the report said.

World Bank Country Director Motoo Konishi said a comprehensive agenda to support the revival of agriculture and manufacturing will further strengthen the country’s resilience to calamities.

“Reforms to secure property rights, enhance competition, simplify regulations, and increase investments in health, education, and infrastructure will make this happen,” Konishi said.

Sought for comment, University of Asia and the Pacific (UA&P) School of Economics dean Peter Lee U said jobs creation is important for inclusive growth.

“More formal jobs in the market will lead to better income distribution,” he said.

The report cited poverty incidence in the country barely improved from 26.3 percent in 2009 to 25.2 percent in 2012 as economic growth has not yet reached the poor even as natural calamities pushed millions of Filipinos into poverty.

“Underlying the slow progress in poverty reduction is the lack of good jobs. Seventy-five percent of workers or some 28 million Filipinos are informally employed with little or no protection from job losses and opportunities to find gainful employment,” the report read.

Typhoon Yolanda curbed growth in the fourth quarter last year, bringing full-year output at 7.2 percent, still above government’s goal of 6 to 7 percent and the fastest since 7.7 percent in 2009.

But in January, unemployment increased to 7.5 percent from 7.1 percent in the comparable period, translating to 2.969 million Filipinos without jobs, the National Statistics Office (NSO) reported.

Rogier van den Brink, World Bank lead economist for the Philippines, said the country has a unique window of opportunity open today for an action-oriented and coalition-supported program on job creation.

The opportunities to take advantage of is the current pro-poor government, strong growth prospects of a dynamic East Asia region, accelerating reform momentum of the Aquino administration and a consensus among a broad spectrum of stakeholders for reforms.

“By undertaking structural reforms now, the economy can move towards a more inclusive growth path and create more and better jobs for the majority of the population,” said van den Brink.

More and better jobs will come from more investments in the country, UA&P’s U said.

“The government has started improving the investment climate with transparency and fight against corruption,” he said.

“But this has to be sustained. It needs to be clear to foreign investors that they are welcome to invest here,” he added. — JDS, GMA News