NEDA SAYS QUALITY OF JOBS IMPROVED, CREATION OF DECENT AND PRODUCTIVE EMPLOYMENT A GOV’T TOP PRIORITY

MANILA—Following the release of the results of the January 2012 round of the Labor Force Survey (LFS) by the National Statistics Office (NSO), the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) said the quality of employment in January 2012 improved due to the expansion of remunerative wage and salary employment as well as the rebound of full-time employment growth.

“The growth of remunerative wage and salary employment expanded by 3.3 percent from a negative 1.2 percent in January 2011. Likewise, the growth of full-time employment rebounded from negative 2.6 percent in January 2011 to 2.6 percent in January 2012,” NEDA Deputy Director General Margarita R. Songco said.

The NEDA Officer-in-Charge said that based on the LFS, majority of Filipino workers remained employed in more remunerative and stable work considering wage and salary workers comprised 54.8 percent of total workers and 3.6 percent were employers.  Lesser proportions were self-employed (30.1%) and unpaid workers (11.5%)

Songco said that despite the favorable performance of the labor market in January 2012, government must continue to prioritize generating more decent, productive and quality employment that provides adequate income for the Filipino workers.

“Government must continue to implement employment-related policies such as more frequent monitoring of and closer coordination among government agencies that implement the Community Based Employment Program (CBEP), supporting advocacy campaigns for the tourism plan and promote employment-intensive interventions, intensifying implementation of Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects and providing microfinancing and marketing support to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs),” she emphasized.

She added that government must improve skills matching through enhancing coordination among employers, the academe and government, reduce youth unemployment by motivating the private sector to increase youth employment opportunities and intensify the use of online labor market information systems by public and private offices to expand the reach to job searchers.

Songco is optimistic that said that job and employment creation within the near-term will continue to be vibrant despite economic downside risks. “Job and employment creation will continue to expand as government remains committed to implement its programs and projects on time and as domestic industries recover,” she added.

The NEDA official identified the factors that will boost the labor market. These are the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) Food Staples Sufficiency Program (FSSP) which aims to attain sufficiency in major staples by 2013; recoveries in manufacturing and construction subsectors; the expected surge in inbound tourists due to more aggressive tourism programs; the upbeat revenue target of the BPO industry, and the start of preparatory activities for the 2013 national and local elections.

The LFS showed that employment significantly grew by 3.0 percent in January 2012, coming from a very minimal growth of 0.8 percent in January 2011. Unemployment rate dropped to 7.2 percent while underemployment rate improved to 18.8 percent.

MR No. 2012-021

March 19, 2012