THE Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) blamed on Friday, November 5, 2021, the repeated implementation of community lockdowns in the country as the cause of rise in unemployment rate.
In a statement, TUCP said the recurring imposition of community quarantines has adversely affected the employment of Filipinos, which is now at its highest for the year.
"We attribute the rise in the unemployment rate to the wrong application of wholesale cyclical lockdowns by government as their repeated choice of response to the Covid-19 pandemic," said TUCP.
"This is the primary cause of business closures and job losses," it added.
The labor group cited as an example the export-oriented companies, many of which have closed shop amid the pandemic.
"With repeated summary lockdowns, many export-oriented companies have chosen to transfer their business operations to other countries, or have reconfigured their domestic operations here, or have totally shut down," stressed TUCP.
It said such closures could have been avoided if only granular hard lockdowns were utilized instead.
"This would have allowed businesses in territorial jurisdictions and industries with less incidence of infections to continue to operate and keeping the business supply chain alive," said TUCP.
On Thursday, November 4, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported that the September unemployment rate of the country was at 8.9 percent.
This is higher compared to the 8.1 percent unemployment rate in August, and is the highest so far in 2021 since the 8.8 percent recorded in January. (HDT/SunStar Philippines)