COVID-19 may leave 5 M workers jobless
Gov’t lost 54% of its revenues from tourist arrivals – Puyat
More than five million workers could lose their jobs due to the impact of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and the quarantine rules imposed to curb its spread.
Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III bared this estimate during the second day of Senate Committee of the Whole's inquiry on the government's COVID-19 response and economic stimulus plans on Wednesday, May 20.
“Actually, our estimate is that we might lose about more than four to five million jobs. Right now, we already lost 2.6 million workers resulting from businesses going into temporary closure, and another group of business establishments having flexible working arrangements," Bello said when asked by Senate President Pro-Tempore Ralph Recto about the Department of Labor and Employment's (DOLE) outlook.
Bello said these could include workers from hard-hit sectors such as tourism and related businesses like restaurants, as well as transportation.
The figure could increase, he said, as this has yet to consider the 8.6 million workers in the retail sector and the 3.8 million workers in manufacturing industry.
He said it's even “possible” that the job loss could reach 10 million.
54% loss in tourism Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat also said that tourism businesses could lay off employees due to the persisting travel restrictions.
Puyat said the government has already lost 54 percent of its revenues from tourist arrivals, and that this would “definitely” worsen by the end of 2020.
“For the month of April, [we have] zero revenues because we have zero tourist arrivals,” she said.
There are about 9,000 tourism-related businesses accredited by the Department of Tourism (DOT). The number of non-accredited establishment “could be more”.
The tourism sector currently hires 5.4 million workers, Puyat said.
Like in the tourism sector, Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade also said that several workers in the transport sector would also be displaced.
“Marami po,” Tugade said when asked on Department of Transportation's (DOTr) estimate, adding that they would submit the details to the Senate later.
The DOLE, DOT, and the DOTr have requested from Congress the grant of ₱40-billion, ₱70-billion, and ₱95-billion allocations, respectively, to finance their recovery plans for the concerned sectors.