Vice President and Presidential Adviser on overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) Noli de Castro said yesterday the Philippine government’s ban on the deployment of Filipino workers to Jordan, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Iraq and Lebanon stays.

UP TO 60,000 jobs could be lost in the country’s key electronics sector after Intel Corp. closed its plant in Cavite and Texas Instruments announced a number of layoffs, Labor Secretary Marianito Roque said yesterday.

Management prerogative means the right of the employer to regulate all aspects of employment, to discipline its employees and to impose appropriate penalties on erring workers pursuant to company rules and regulations, such as suspension from work or dismissal from service. This case is about suspension and dismissal.

Intel has formally announced the impending closure of its test-and-assembly facility in General Trias, Cavite to its employees yesterday, a source said.

Overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) have proven to be more popular than ever among foreign employers.

The bicameral conference committee of the Senate and the House of Representatives approved yesterday the P1.415-trillion national budget for this year, including P50 billion for the “economic stimulus package.”

Twenty foreign-assisted projects have incurred P33.5 billion in cost overruns, Sen. Francis Escudero said yesterday.

It’s musical chairs again at the Palace, with President Arroyo reshuffling key posts in her Cabinet, ostensibly triggered by the request for a lighter workload from Press Secretary Jesus Dureza.

The Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry needs the support of the government especially in the promotion of the country as a good offshoring destination, the Business Process Association of the Philippines (BPAP) said.

Tokyo-based investment bank Nomura International Limited has lowered its gross domestic project (GDP) growth projection for the Philippines this year to 2.8 percent from three percent previously, due to the global financial turmoil.

Japanese investors raised concerns over the effect of market conditions on the government’s P20-billion privatization plan this year but officials said careful timing would enable finance officials to raise the target revenue.

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) will scale down its mineral investment target in view of the global economic slowdown.

Large export firms in Laguna have retrenched 35,000 workers and cut working hours to cope with the prevailing economic crisis, the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) reported yesterday.

The Senate is mulling over the possibility of enacting a permanent rent control law, instead of merely extending the law by three years or more upon its expiration.

PRESIDENT Arroyo has reshuffled the members of her Cabinet, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said yesterday.

THE pre-need industry will show a steep deficit for 2008, with liabilities surpassing trust funds, after investment earnings took a beating from the global financial meltdown.

The economic crisis may have created challenging times for many families, but as a resourceful people, we Filipinos can still find many accessible, viable opportunities that will help provide that much-needed supplemental income. Here are some practical ways to earn extra cash and ride out the present credit crunch.

THE US recession could derail spending in the information communication and technology (ICT) sector, as telecom companies reassess business plans, according to IDC Philippines.

LOCAL mining executives said the global credit crunch has constrained funding for projects.

Not every violation of company rules and regulations may be a valid cause for dismissal. This is illustrated in this case of Mia.

Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago is certainly sick.

I’ve known for a long time now that there is a gaping mismatch between what the academe produces and what industry needs. I’ve written about it many times in the past as well.

Anti-life advocates and lobbyists of Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman’s contraception bill, euphemistically called the Reproductive Health and Population Management Act of 2008 (an oxymoron and a proposed law which makes the state intrude into your bedroom and tells you what to do in your exercise of marital love, and makes a “national policy” in the…

PRESIDENT Arroyo has approved a 10-percent increase in her administration’s economic stimulus package to create 3 million jobs and to finance an infrastructure buildup this year, bringing the fund total to P330 billion.

Financing for mining projects in the country will likely be more scarce this year as investors and lenders tighten up on credit and capital buildup due to the global economic downturn, the International Finance Corp. said.

Bangko Sental ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Amando M.Tetangco Jr. said yesterday that Japanese investors are still largely optimistic on the Philippines as the country’s economic fundamentals held steady in 2008.

We can keep telling each other until we are blue in the face that the world financial crisis won’t affect us that badly or worse, still to land on our shores. But the facts of the matter are: the economy has already retreated sharply, exports have declined, there are more factory closures and job layoffs…

Labor and Employment Secretary Marianito D. Roque today said some displaced overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) from Taiwan would soon organize themselves to put up their own business enterprise under the DOLE contingency plan for workers affected by the global financial crisis.

Dear PAO,  My friend was recently terminated from her job without prior notice. He was with the company for almost three years until he was verbally dismissed from his position effective three days after he was told to leave. Can he file any legal case against the company for not giving him longer notice regarding…

More than 80 percent of Filipinos support family planning and almost half believe the government should limit the number of children a couple can have, according to a survey released Monday.