EMPLOYERS in the Cordillera expressed willingness to comply with the Department of Labor and Employment (Dole) Department Order 168 banning end-of-contract (endo) and other “labor only” contracting practices.
According to Dole-CAR regional director Exequiel Ronie Guzman, many establishments have complied with the order based on their latest monitoring.
Tiong San Harrison, which is one of the major outlet stores in the Summer Capital employs close to 650 workers have 250 regular employees while some 350 laborers are contracted by their concessionaires.
After a meeting with Dole–CAR representatives, the establishment has removed the practice of contracting their employees. SunStar Baguio research revealed newly hired employees by the store can be regularized after passing the six month probationary period which include good work attitude, no absences and high performance.
The human resource office of Tiong San added they are now making an arrangement with the direct employers of the concessionaires.
Elaijah Valeriano, a former food chain employee who has experienced endo lauded the efforts of the government which is beneficial to the labor sector and this will give workers security of tenure.
Merwin Reganid, now a regular employee of a mall in Baguio City thanked Dole for the department order protecting their rights as employees in a private company.
Anakbayan Baguio in a statement said the government should look for ways to protect the security of tenure of all workers and hope for amendments of some laws under the Labor Code.
Employment in the Cordilleras decreased from 95.9 percent in October 2015 to 95.6 percent in January 2016, according to the Labor Force Participation of the region by the Philippine Statistics Office.
But despite the 0.3 percent decrease, Cordillera had the highest labor force participation rate (LFPR) at 67.0 percent followed by Cagayan Valley at 65.9 percent and Mimaropa at 65.6 percent.
The PSA survey added o f the 765,000 employed persons in CAR for January 2015, 59.9 percent were males while 40.1 percent were females.
It was also noted in the survey employed males in the region increased by 0.5 percentage point from the 59.4 percent in October 2015 to 59.9 percent while employed females decreased by 0.5 percentage point from 40.6% employed females in October 2015 to 40.1 percent in January 2016.
Of the total labor force, 36.1 percent had high school education with 23.0 percent graduated while 13.1 percent did not graduate.
Employed persons with college education followed with 31.4 percent with 20.4 percent graduated while 11.0 percent did not finish College
Agriculture and Forestry continued to be the biggest employer in the region with 43.9percent share in January 2016. However, the share of the industry decreased by 3.8 percentage points compared to October 2015.
Wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles ranked as the second largest sub-industry with 12.4 percent of the total employed persons in January 2016.
Construction made up the third largest sub-industry accounting for 7.7 percent in January 2016. This was an increase of 1.7 percentage points compared to October 2015.
Manufacturing shared only 2.2 percent of the total employed persons in the region in January.
2016 considering this sub-industry contributes the most to the regional economy.
Among the occupation groups, laborers and unskilled workers remained to be the largest group of employed persons in CAR with 33.3 percent of the total regional employment in January 2016. This decreased by 1.37 percentage points compared to October 2015. (With a report from Roderick Osis)