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Tuesday, November 11, 2003
Unemployment to rise in 2004: bizmen
MORE job losses and a higher unemployment rate will beset the country next year.
Business leaders made the projections after investors hold off expansion projects in the country because of the unstable political situation caused by the filing of an impeachment complaint against Chief Justice Hilario Davide.
"I think come April you're going to see a higher unemployment rate," Donald Dee, president of the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (Ecop) said.
He said the fact that foreign investors are uncertain and have lesser confidence on the government because what's been happening in the country is an indication
that there could never be an expansion of their current projects in the Philippines.
"What I am saying is, if there is no work, it's because we don't see any investments and no expansions and if there are some, you also see job losses.
That's the reality," Dee said.
While recognizing that there are some few foreign capitalists who are still infusing capital in the country, most of them are not investing in sectors
that would promote jobs generation and creation.
"Our job losses are higher and the job losses came from the labor intensive sector while investors (that are coming in) are not infusing capital in the labor intensive sector," the Ecop president lamented.
Miguel Varela, chairman of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), who concurred with Dee, stressed that what the government should do now is to concentrate on findings ways to preserve jobs and not only on jobs creation.
For their part, Alex Aguilar, spokesman of the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP), said projections of a rise in the number of unemployed
workers, particularly in April and May, are normal because of the huge number of fresh college graduates who will join the hunt for jobs.
Based on the Labor Force Survey conducted by the National Statistics Office (NSO), about 4.35 million Filipinos were unemployed last Sept or half a million
higher than last year's figure.
The data further showed that last Apri, there are about 4.217 million Filipinos jobless as against 4.866 million in 2002 or 12.2 percent lower.
(November 11, 2003 issue)
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