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Sunday, June 19, 2005
Militants dispute region 10 jobs record
By Lizanilla J. Amarga
THE Local National Statistics Office (NSO) 10 posted no change in the percent of unemployment rate in Northern Mindanao for the first quarter of 2005 as compared to the same period last year.
Both periods posted only an employment rate of 7.4 percent.
But local labor groups expressed disbelief on this latest figure saying it does not reflect the actual unemployment situation in the region.
They also slammed the NSO-10 for not actually doing its job and for being "blind to reality."
These militant groups contend that the unemployment rate must be higher considering the growing number of new graduates, street vendors, urban poor, out of school youths and "standbys" among many others.
In the recently released First Quarter 2005 Regional Economic Situationer for Region 10, revealed that the working age population grew by 3.2 percent from 2.433 million in January 2004 to 2.512 in January 2005.
It states that this translated to 79,000 additional individuals in the labor force, which increased by 4.5 percent fro 1.819 million in January 2004 to 1.901 million in January 2005.
"Consequently, labor force participation rate slightly increased by 0.8 percent from 74.9 in January 2004 to 75.7 percent in January 2005," the report reads.
The same report states that employment opportunities continued to expand posting a 4.5 percent growth, employing 76,000 out of the79,000 new entrants to the labor force. "However, this increase was barely enough to keep the employment rates at the same level in January 2004 at 92.6 percent," the report reads.
The table on Labor Force and Employment Status translated this as zero percent unemployment rate change for first quarter 2005 as compared to the same period for 2004. This as first quarter 2005 showed unemployment to be at 7.4 percent, which is the same unemployment percentage rate for first quarter 2004.
But Kilusang Mayo Uno local coordinator Ryan Guerrero and Bayan Muna regional spokesperson Nero Vallar told Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro that such figures are not "incorrect and misleading."
Guerrero said the figures are "extremely ridiculous" as it is "impossible at this present conditions.
"Based on the date we have gathered, NSO included in their list as workers those who are only contractual workers who are working without any security of tenure at all," he said.
He added that there are various cases of labor displacement and many of them are "looming in the entire region."
Both Guerrero and Vallar said the rate of unemployment is so much higher than that of the number of real job opportunities in the region.
"This just goes to show how NSO does not actually have a mass base and that its staff just stays in their airconditioned office and are blind to the real conditions in the region. For what are those growing numbers of sidewalk vendors, peddlers, standbys and new graduates, urban poor among others?" Vallar said in the dialect.
He also added that there a huge number of the employment rate is composed of those five-month contractual and underemployed workers.
Vallar said NSO should not mislead the public as it will further lose its credibility.
"If that is the assessment made by NSO then it is trying to deceive the people and trying to show that the people are not actually suffering of poverty. What they are trying to point to the public is something incorrect that means NSO is lying and cannot be trusted," he said.
(June 19, 2005 issue)
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