ILO says PH workers among world’s lowest paid

MANILA, Philippines—The International Labor Organization (ILO) said Philippine workers were among the most affected by the world economic crisis and expressed concern over the “extremely high risk of low pay” in the country.

The ILO’s “Global Wage Report 2010” also noted a paradox in Philippine wage trends: Higher education did not correlate with higher wages, contrary to the pattern in many other parts of the world.

In the Philippines, low pay—particularly among domestic workers—“is partly caused by the lack of proper wage protection, notably the common practice of excluding such workers from the application of minimum wages,” said the report which was released on December 15.

And while low wages are correlated with low educational attainment in most parts of the world, the Philippine case seems to be the opposite.

“Surprisingly, the Philippines seems to represent an interesting exception to this common pattern, registering a high incidence of low wage employment among those with a primary and secondary education,” the report said.

The incidence of low-wage employment in the Philippines was also 46 percent higher among women than among men, it said.

The report, the second of its kind, provides a global analysis of wage trends in 2008-2009, a period characterized by the deepest economic downturn since the 1930s.

The report used data from 115 countries and territories, covering more than 90 percent of the approximately 1.4 billion wage earners worldwide.

In the Philippines and Malaysia, real wages were cut by more than 4 percent in 2008, while that in Japan fell nearly 2 percent in both 2008 and 2009, and Thailand, by almost 2 percent in 2009.

The report likewise identified the Philippines as among the most vulnerable countries that experienced an increase in low-wage employment in the last 15 years, with 15 percent of the country’s employed found in low-wage jobs.

Australia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea and New Zealand also recorded an increase in low-wage employment. In Korea, the ILO noted that 25 percent of full-time workers were employed in low-paying jobs.

In general, however, Asia recorded the best performance in the world in terms of wage growth, although this was mainly due to China, which accounts for half of the total wage employment in Asia.

According to the report, while global financial turmoil reduced global wage growth by half in the last two years, Asia remained positive with a provisional estimate for wage growth at 8 percent in 2009. –Cynthia Balana, Philippine Daily Inquirer