INSPIRATIONAL MESSAGE
by Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan
“Monitoring Progress on Decent Work Through Statistics: Pathway to Inclusive Growth”
National Statistics Month 2012
October 1, 2012
Grand Ballroom, Century Park Hotel, Manila
As we celebrate this year’s National Statistics Month (NSM), we once again highlight the importance of statistics in helping monitor our progress in providing opportunities for decent work. Decent work for all ensures that people are able to meet their basic needs, so they contribute in our overall efforts to achieving inclusive growth.
In the government’s efforts to provide more opportunities for decent work, we rely heavily on statistics for sound and research-based planning and policy formulation. Through accurate and reliable statistics, we are able to ascertain, not only which areas of employment are available for job seekers and where they are located, but more importantly what policies and programs the government can implement on labor and job generation. The government ensures that once employed, individuals enjoy their rights as workers, with full access to social protection.
The Philippine Development Plan 2010-2016, and its corresponding Philippine Labor and Employment Plan, has programs on strengthening the labor sector, and they include the creation of employment and livelihood opportunities across all regions, across all sectors in the society, particularly for the poor. These programs would not have been possible without a clear understanding of the context of labor and institutional realities, in the context of our own peculiarities, and without the statistics that we have painstakingly generated, validated and confirmed.
The Philippine Statistical System (PSS), for this reason, is an essential partner in socioeconomic development. The Philippine Statistical Development Program (PSDP) 2011-2017, specifically the chapter on Labor and Employment, identifies the programs which are necessary in improving the current state of labor and employment statistics. These involve enhanced processes in generating and disseminating quality data, increased statistical capacity and resources for statistics, and strengthened advocacy for wider and rational use of statistics in policy and other purposes.
As has been noted by NSCB Secretary-General Jose Ramon Albert, the employment rate is estimated currently at 93 percent, while its reverse unemployment rate is at 7.0 percent, with the NCR posting the highest unemployment rate at 9.9 percent. What is more disturbing, however, is that the underemployment rate has risen to 22.7 percent in July 2012 from 19 percent in July last year. That to me tells a lot about the quality of jobs that we are creating. While the economy is growing, there seem to be less access to quality jobs, particularly jobs that the poor need and jobs that match the skills of the poor.
We become more aware that much more has to be done to create conditions that could further improve employment opportunities. And we are encouraging greater investments in most sectors, including public infrastructure and social services, industry and agriculture to create more jobs.
With the July 2012 LFS results with us, we are afforded with the opportunity to reflect on the 23rd NSM theme, “Monitoring Progress on Decent Work Through Statistics: Pathway to Inclusive Growth.” This provides a timely reminder for development planning stakeholders regarding a long-standing reality: a high unemployment rate could account for the long-standing conditions of poverty. Hence, all development stakeholders, the NEDA included and its attached agencies, need to work double time in meeting the challenges of employment, protecting our labor sector, and ensuring the sector’s sustainability through appropriate tripartite arrangements. We also need to monitor the progress of our labor-related programs. Through all these activities, we shall be guided neither by anecdotal evidences nor hearsay but through the reliable statistics produced by the PSS and its partners in the development community.
Our planners have a better appreciation of statistics than the ordinary layperson, particularly in decision-making. Thus, perhaps an area that we could pursue is to advocate the strengthening of the PSS towards globally competitive standards and the broader and more rational use of statistics for policymaking, including that for the improvement of our labor sector.
In particular, the provision of decent work for all will be greatly guided by quality statistics made available to us, for now and in the future.
In my work as a development economist, from the academe to government, I have been guided by research-based statistics to analyze development conditions and offer recommendations. And I thank the PSS for this. I am not the only one who has benefitted from this. The government and the international community as well have benefited from these inputs.
Congratulations to the Department of Labor and Employment for hosting the 23rd NSM Opening Ceremony! Congratulations to everyone.
Mabuhay kayong lahat and welcome to the 23rd NSM!
M.R. No. 2012-067
01 October 2012
