PANAMA CITY – A top UN official said the global AIDS epidemic could be over by 2030 because of progress made in treatment and control of the disease.

WASHINGTON – The Philippines moved to 56th place among 152 countries in the annual rankings on economic freedom around the world.

MANILA — The National Competitiveness Council (NCC) expressed confidence that the Philippines would be able to improve its ranking in a survey of “business-friendly” countries conducted jointly by the World Bank and the International Finance Corp. (IFC) following the major reforms rolled out by the government and the private sector.

The Philippines and Thailand discussed ways to strengthen their cooperation in protecting migrant workers from transnational crimes, the Department of Foreign Affairs said.

MANILA – The National Competitiveness Council (NCC) expects the Philippines to improve its global ranking in terms of ease of doing business after the government slashed some steps, cut the time and reduced the costs of putting up an enterprise.

Hong Kong is facing a shortage of foreign domestic helpers from the region. Hong Kong (CNN) — Beaten with bicycle chains, burned with hot irons and bashed with a shoe, the case of Indonesian domestic helper Kartika Puspitasari — whose Chinese employers were jailed this week over the assaults — highlights just how tough Hong…

MANILA, Philippines – Increase in minimum wage is not enough to help ordinary employees cope with rising prices of commodities, health, and education.

For James and Phil Younghusband, football is more than a sport. The game has been said to stop wars (Christmas Day, 1914 when English and German soldiers called a truce and play a game of football and sang Christmas carols) or even start wars (the football war between El Salvador and Honduras in 1969). Because…

The country head of the International Labor Organization (ILO) said the Aquino administration needs to “walk the talk” by translating the 7.5-percent economic growth into decent jobs that could improve the situation of millions in vulnerable employment and who are unable to lift themselves from the quagmire of poverty.

PARIS – The 2008 financial crisis that devastated many Western economies also reaped a heavy toll in suicides among men, a study published on Tuesday suggests.

(Reuters) – Progress toward achieving gender equality around the globe has stalled in recent years, with women still holding fewer salaried jobs than men and receiving lower wages for their work, the IMF said in a study on Monday.

What if your bank records and transactions are accessible not just to one bank entity but also to a web of obscure service providers? Almost all banking functions in the Philippines – from tellering, credit card services to ATM cash replenishment – are currently being outsourcedto third party service providers. For labor, such scheme undermines…

In line with efforts to create more jobs and achieve inclusive growth, Philippine economic managers are pushing for higher foreign direct investments (FDI) – as much as 20 percent a year, a Cabinet official said Tuesday.

DURING its meeting on September 12, the Monetary Board, the policy-making body of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), decided to keep its policy rates steady, citing the manageable inflation environment, which has been at 2.8 percent for the first eight months of 2013, well below the BSP’s target of 3 percent to 5 percent.

President Barack Obama’s recent comments about income inequality are providing more fuel to the debate over whether the government can really do anything to reduce it, but perhaps the bigger question is: Do voters really want them to?

Foreign domestic workers in Jordan, including Filipinos, have been ordered to secure a clearance first stating that they have no criminal records before exiting the Kingdom.

Inequality—or the gap between the rich and the poor—in the Philippines could be worse as the household-income surveys are probably not that accurate due to “non-response” from rich respondents, the World Bank said.

SAN FERNANDO CITY, Philippines – When you open the bottle of Coke, it should be you “Open Happiness,” said June of the San Fernando Coca-Cola Rank and File Union (Sacoru) in Pampanga.

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) will achieve universal health coverage before the end of President Aquino’s term in 2016, Health Secretary Enrique Ona said yesterday.

The Philippine manufacturing sector should be ready in five to 10 years as an alternative site because China, Thailand and neighboring countries will raise their wages.

MANILA, Philippines – Over the decade, only about a fourth of the potential entrants to the labor force in the Philippines land good jobs, according to a study conducted by the World Bank.

MANILA – The World Bank gave a press conference yesterday about the Philippine Development Report 2013 with the theme, “Creating More and Better Jobs.” The Bank expressed alarm that many Filipinos were either unemployed or underemployed, or had jobs but were in low productivity, low-paying work. Both conditions result in more poverty.

GENEVA – Developing and former communist countries such as Brazil and Russia are heading for much faster growth this year than the developed world, the United Nations said on Thursday, meaning they will remain the main drivers of the world economy.

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Labor of Employment (DOLE) sees more jobs for the youth and other jobseekers in the remaining months of the year due to the coming holiday season.

The Philippines today has a great window of opportunity to deepen reforms that will put the country on an irreversible path towards inclusive growth – one that generates more jobs and reduces extreme poverty. If Filipinos could work together for a broad reform coalition that will commit to continuing the current positive trends on good…

UNITED NATIONS – The number of migrants around the world rose above 230 million in 2013 with the United States, Western Europe and the Gulf oil states the biggest draws, the UN said Wednesday, September 11.

Today, we launch a new paper that uses the lessons from Africa, Latin America and South East Asia to warn against aggressive austerity programmes in Europe. Krisnah Poinasamy, one of the authors of the paper, explains more.

15.4% of household budget goes to education MANILA, Philippines—FIlipinos, in general, believe more strongly in the correlation between education and having better employment prospects compared to the global average, according to the latest survey by Nielsen.

(updated 1:28 p.m.) The number of unemployed Filipinos slightly increased in July year-on-year despite strong economic growth in the second quarter, the National Statistics Office (NSO) reported Tuesday.

FILIPINOS spend more for education compared to other nationalities, according to the latest Global Survey of Education Aspirations released by market research firm Nielsen Holdings NV.