The Rodrigo Duterte administration failed to provide jobs to more than a million Filipinos last year despite the country registering high gross domestic product (GDP) figures, according to a think-tank.
Ibon Foundation, an independent research organisation, said based on data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) 1,281,506 Filipinos were hired by various companies to work abroad from January to September 2017.
That is equivalent to 4,694 Filipinos going abroad each day in order to look for better jobs, Ibon pointed out.
The group said the continuing exodus of Filipino workers is “disappointing” considering that the country’s GDP from January to September last year was pegged at 6.7%.
Despite POEA’s announcement that more than a million jobs were produced last year, around 663,000 of 40.9mn employed Filipinos lost their jobs in 2016, based on Ibon’s computation.
It noted that the job lost was the highest since 1997.
Data from the Department of Labour and Employment (DOLE) showed that there were 821,000 lost jobs in 1997.
At that time, former President Fidel Ramos claimed that he had transformed the Philippines into one of the economic tigers in southeast Asia.
Ibon also noted that the unemployment rate last year saw a 9.2% increase.
The employment drop was the highest among members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
The group also revealed that the labour force participation rate (LFPR) dropped to 63.7%, the worst in three decades.
The lowest LFPR was 63.1% which happened “during the severe economic crisis in 1985,” Ibon recalled.
The group explained that “the vast reserve army of unemployed gives employers huge leverage to peg wages at a low, combining with government’s cheap wage policy to keep wages down and contractualisation unabated.”