DOLE Press Statement – "On what the government does to address unemployment"
DOLE Press Statement – "On what the government does to address unemployment"
“The government recognizes the problem of unemployment, whether it is shown by the official Labor Force Survey of the NSO, or by the SWS and some other surveys.
"The DOLE is decisively helping address the problem by promoting and implementing job creation facilitation programs, such as the delivery of correct, relevant, and updated labor market information.
"Through the Special Program for the Employment of Students (SPES), the DOLE provides short-term employment to poor but deserving students and out-of-school youth. With a budget of P140 million for 2012, a total of 136,529 students and OSY have benefited from the SPES as of October 31.
"The Community-Based Employment Program (CBEP), which the DOLE monitors, is a short-term employment program for workers in distress and displaced by calamities and natural disasters. As of October 31, a total of 977,791 workers have been employed in various infrastructure and non-infrastructure projects of major national government agencies.
"The Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), a DOLE attached agency, is helping bridge workers to employment through the following major programs:
"(1) Training for Work Scholarship Program (TWSP), which has an allocation of P700 million for 2012, is expected to benefit 70,000 scholars. Another P8 million in TWSP funds have been allocated for the ARMM, for 1,309 scholars. Already, 41,996 have availed of the TWSP as of October 31.
"(2) Industry-based TWSP (I-TWSP), which has an allocation of P1.1 billion for 2012, has a P500 million allocation for the training of workers in business process outsourcing, and P600 million for workers' training in agri-fisheries, construction, tourism, and semi-conductors and electronics. As of October 31, this program has already benefited 94,516 workers;
(3) Private Education Student Financial Assistance (PESFA) Program, which has an allocation of P13.5 million for 2012, and aimed to benefit 1,663 scholars. As of October, 1,174 scholars have been benefited by the PESFA.
(4) Skills Training for the Youth and the Ulama, which has an allocation of P40 million, expected to benefit 5,984 workers, as part of the Transition Investment Support Plan for the ARMM."
"Historically, the SWS survey results on unemployment is higher than the results of the LFS. Nevertheless, in looking at the results of the SWS' August 2012 Adult Unemployment Survey, we see that some of its findings validate the government's confidence and optimism in its efforts to facilitate job creation, which is one of the goals of the Philippine Development Plan 2011-2016.
"The SWS survey reveals that 33 percent of its respondents said there would be more jobs in the next 12 months. One positive indicator of this is the number of job vacancies posted at the government's official job and skills matching and job search facility, the Phil-JobNet, which reached a record high of 180,190 local job vacancies uploaded by employers in October 2012.
"The Aquino III administration has arrested and reversed the steep ascent of unemployment rates from the double figures in the period before 2010 to single digit level today.
"The country's official unemployment rate, based on the LFS, is 7.0 percent, or 2.8 million, which declined from 7.1 percent in July 2011.
"The country's labor market continues to perform better as the employment level has grown by 1.3 percent, with total employed persons increasing from 37.106 million in 2011 to 37.584 million in July 2012, as borne out by the results of the NSO's LFS.
“From 63.7 percent in 2011, the labor participation rate has increased to 64.3 percent, as the number of persons in the labor force rose by 1.2 percent to reach 40.427 million.
“The DOLE is of the view that the employment performance of the economy could not be SOLELY assessed on the basis of unemployment data. We also put equal emphasis on the quality of employment.
"One indicator of the quality of employment is the employment growth in the major sectors. In the July 2012 round of the LFS, employment in the industry sector grew by 5.4 percent, compared to 4.1 percent in July 2011. The services sector posted a year-on-year employment growth of 3.5 percent or 20.047 million, a decline from its 4.3 percent growth in July 2011. Employment in agriculture, however, registered a decline of 4.1 percent due to successive bad weather.
"In a developing economy like ours where agriculture is the dominant sector, the labor market is characterized by a high prevalence of self-employment and unpaid workers.
“Another positive indicator is the increase in the number of persons in full-time employment, up by 2.3 percent, or 563,000 in July 2012, and wage and salary employment, which posted an increase of 6.3 percent, or 1.314 million.
"As a result of the increase in the number of wage and salaried workers, there was a large reduction in the number of self-employed persons and unpaid family workers.
“Still another positive feature is that the proportion of persons in vulnerable employment, or self-employed persons and unpaid family workers in total employment dropped to 37 percent from 40.2 percent in July 2011, or by 3.2 percentage points. The proportion of persons in vulnerable employment, or self-employed persons, is one of the Millennium Development Goal indicators.
END
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