Tourism reliant on contractual, project-based workers

By Czeriza Valencia (The Philippine Star), November 2, 2016

MANILA, Philippines – Tourism – one of the key industries in the country with strong employment generation potential – still relies heavily on contractual and project-based workers, according to an industry profile released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

In a report, the PSA said as of June 2014 the industry comprises 6,297 establishments engaged in various activities, 76 percent of which were in the hotel and restaurant business.

Around 445,754 workers were employed by these establishments during the reference period, 85.7 percent of which were rank-and-file employees (375,143) while the rest were managers and working owners.

Thirty two percent of the rank-and-file workers (118,373) were non-regular workers hired as contractual and project-based workers.

The tourism sector is also an attractive industry for women as data shows 44 percent of the industry’s workforce during the reference period were women. By age classification, a quarter of the workers in the sector were young workers aged 15 to 24 years.

Subcontracting was also strong in the tourism industry in 2014. Two in three establishments outsourced jobs and services within their premises. As such, around 70,000 workers in establishments were hired through contracting agencies.

Unionism does not appear to be widespread in the industry as indicated by the union density rate of 9.5 percent, equivalent to total union membership of 41,419, most of which were covered by collective bargaining agreements.

Thousands of job vacancies were reported in the tourism industry during the survey period, 83.5 percent of which were considered easy-to-fill while the rest were hard-to-fill.

More difficult to fill were positions for medical technologists for health and wellness services, cooks, waiters and bartenders, nurses, as well and production and operations managers in hotels and restaurants.

Establishments were having difficulty filling up these positions because there were few applicants for the jobs and those that do apply lack the needed skill and competence for the job as well as the required years of experience.

In 2013 to 2014, the total labor cost shouldered by employers reached P77.2 billion, 84 percent of which were used for payment of direct wages.

Several employers also shouldered the cost of housing for their employees. Other expenses shouldered by employers included work clothes, protective gear, transportation, recruitment cost and social security.

Pertinent government agencies also extended assistance to workers in the tourism sector in the form of productivity improvement programs that cover the shortening of process cycle time and reduction of the following: customer complaints, wastage, work-related accidents and injuries, personnel downtime.

Trainings were also conducted to increase volume of production and product quality.

There remains a tussle between the government and the private sector over proposed labor policies that seek to further increase minimum wages and stop end-of-contract arrangements.

Both parties agree to end the illegal aspects of contractualization. The private sector, however, is staunchly against stopping entirely the hiring of contractual workers.