Apparent job losses are not ‘deceiving’
still sounds incoherent, to say nothing of its complete irrelevance to IBON’s argument.
As quoted by GMA News in an online post on Tuesday, Ortiz-Luis said, “Deceiving ‘yung sasabihin mo na nabawasan ng 300,000 ang employed just because you have data na bumaba ang employment despite the fact na may new entrant sa labor market.” (“It is deceiving to say that 300,000 jobs have been lost even though data shows lower employment despite the fact that there were new entrants in the labor market.”)
“While it is possible that there were 300,000 jobs lost ... the labor market is dynamic, meaning merong dumarating na iba (there are additions),” Ortiz-Luis added. “That’s why it is deceiving, kasi sinasabi mo na 300,000 ang nawalan ng trabaho pero ‘di mo naman sinasabi na isang milyun ‘yung bagong pumasok sa labor market.” (“That’s why it is deceiving, because you say that 300,000 are unemployed but you’re not saying that a million new [workers] entered the labor market.”)
IBON executive director Sonny Africa, who charitably described Ortiz-Luis’ argument as “puzzling,” explained that
relatively straightforward math.
“Net employment generation means employment created net of employment lost,” Africa pointed out in IBON’s rebuttal to ECOP’s bizarre statement. In July 2016 at the beginning of Duterte’s term, there were 40.954 million employed persons in the Philippines (that’s according to
to updated PSA data is closer to 40.92 million). In July 2018, there were 40.659 million (again, there’s a slight discrepancy;
40.686 million).
That is a difference of between 234,000 and 295,000 fewer people working, depending on which set of numbers is used, regardless of how many “new entrants” there have been to the labor force. It is a simple mathematic equation; I did the calculation, then had the least arithmeticallyadept of my children check my work, and she arrived at the same result.
IBON provided a few other statistics to give some additional dimension to their argument as well. Agricultural employment was the big loser over the period covering the third quarter of 2016 through the second quarter of 2018, shedding some 1.8 million jobs; anecdotally, many of these jobs were lost due to farm workers being lured away by the prospect of better-paying construction jobs in the promised infrastructure drive. Including other sectors, 2.2 million jobs disappeared in the period, while only 1.9 million new
300,000 jobs.
The group also pointed out that, in spite of the promise of expanded employment under the Duterte administration, it is lagging in job creation; between July 2017 and July 2018, only 488,000 jobs were added, compared with the annual average of just over 700,000 in the previous decade.
As I said near the top of this discussion,
labor data that makes any conclusion a bit uncertain. So while IBON’s conclusions are correct from a certain perspective, it is possible the situation is not quite as dire as they make it sound. But even looking at
the country’s employment situation is still anything but admirable. At best, there may be a net gain of about 14,000 jobs under Duterte’s watch – the difference between a labor force that has declined by 248,000 and jobs that have declined by 234,000 –
a normal margin of error.