More Pinoys became OFWs than got jobs here
And those local jobs mostly were poor quality: low paying, part-time, seasonal, with no benefits or tenure.
More Filipinos left to work abroad than the state created local jobs in 2014. And the domestic jobs mostly were poor quality: low paying, part- time, temporary, with no basic welfares or job security. The IBON Foundation culls this from official government reports no less.
Despite personal dangers and family separation, working abroad no longer is just an option, it would seem, but the only choice for gainful employment.
IBON assesses figures from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) and the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA). The POEA deployed 1.7 million overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in 2014, or 4,508 a day on average.
The PSA, on the other hand, reported 1.02 million more employed Filipinos, or only 2,805 new jobs a day.
$24.3-B vs social costs
Still, joblessness stayed high in 2014. Of the 41-million labor force, 4.3 million (10.5 percent) went workless, and 6.9 million (16.8 percent) underemployed, IBON says.
The total hews close to the Social Weather Stations survey in 4th-quarter 2014, in which 27 percent of respondents said they were looking for work.
The economy booked $24.3 billion
in OFW remittances last year. Yet the social costs of the Filipino diaspora are well documented: psycho-emotional strain of being away, broken families, high college dropout rate among OFW children, and exposure to cruel employers, epidemics, and war.
There are close to 11 million OFWs.
Joblessness equals poverty
Filipinos have in them the dignity of labor; in indignity their political leaders cannot generate jobs. Result: worsening poverty.
A separate SWS survey, 1st-quarter 2015, showed 51 percent of Filipinos rating themselves poor. The government’s official poverty incidence for the first half of 2014 was 25.8 percent.
“The inability of the domestic economy to create enough jobs drives millions of Filipinos abroad,” IBON says. “The serious continuing failure of government economic policy is its refusal actively to protect and support Filipino industry and agriculture.”
90% of new jobs lousy
“Government’s claim of inclusive growth through job generation is false, and should be seen in its complete context,” IBON adds, as it notes:
• Nine out of ten ( 90 percent) or 918,000 of the 1.02 million new jobs in 2014 were lousy. They were just parttime work, of which 605,000 was of less than 20 hours per week. In effect, hapless Filipinos made do with only two-and-a-half days’ wages for seven days of needing still to eat; dress up; and pay rent, water and electricity bills, and transport fare.
• Eight out of ten (77 percent) of the new jobs were in sectors with average daily wage of P356 ($8) or less, around P10,000 a month. That’s barely enough for an individual to live on, let alone a family.
• Nearly 700,000 jobs were also in informal sector or unpaid family work, notorious for low pay and job insecurity. This is not to blame all employers; many of them are hard up too, but take in relatives who are in worse financial shape.
Low-quality jobs widespread
IBON analyzes the entire labor force, and concludes:
• 13.6 million, nearly four in ten (36%) of all employed in 2014, were just parttime. This ratio is worse than the year before. The number of Filipinos in work that pays less than P360 daily even rose to 26.3 million.
• Even among salaried workers, 10 million or over four in ten (44%) are in non-regular thus low-paying, no-benefit, and insecure jobs.
• Around 15 million workers earn only the regional minimum wage or less.
“These indicate steady deterioration in the quality of jobs,” IBON says.
College grads hit too
Gotcha readers are from the educated class. It would interest them to know that
of the 4.3 million unemployed in 2014:
• 1.42 million, one in three (33 percent) were college graduates;
• 387,000 or nine percent have postsecondary qualifications, like vocationaltechnical diplomas; and
• 19.4 million (45 percent) finished high school.
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