MANILA, Philippines – As the global financial and economic turmoil deepens, as many as 200,000 Filipino workers throughout the country may be retrenched from their jobs, a ranking government official warned.
In turn, Dennis Arroyo, the head of the national planning and policy staff of the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda), pointed out such layoffs would increase the country’s unemployment rate.
But Arroyo assured that the number of idle Filipinos would remain at a single digit of 6.8 percent.
This rate, he explained, means that about seven out of every 100 Filipinos, aged between 15 and 55, who want to have gainful employment may fail to find a job.
Arroyo noted that in the face of the growing unemployment, the Department of Labor and Employment is pursuing a program to deploy overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in countries where there is a demand especially for skilled personnel.
He cited as an example many Middle East countries which have been perking up their economies by allocating funds for infrastructure projects in order to cope with the worsening global crisis.
Such move, Arroyo emphasized, has resulted in the demand for skilled OFWs especially in the construction industry in the Middle East, along with other countries like Guam, New Zealand and South Australia.
On the domestic front, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ralph Recto, also the Neda director general, earlier said the Arroyo administration has unveiled an economic stimulus plan, worth the equivalent of about $6 billion, to enable the country to cope with the adverse impact of the financial meltdown.
Recto said the fund would be allocated for infrastructure projects throughout the country, such as construction of school buildings and farm to market roads, rehabilitation of irrigation systems and similar ventures which will employ Filipinos especially those living in the countryside where the majority of the “poorest of the poor” stay.
In addition, the government is offering loans of up to $1,000 to OFWs, who have been retrenched from their jobs but who want to start livelihood opportunities to help ease the impact of the deepening crisis.
However, Recto admitted that the economic stimulus package could create only a maximum of 500,000 jobs, many of which are in the short-term, instead of the one million jobs envisioned for the whole of 2009.
Recto explained the target of one million jobs could only be achieved if the country’s economic growth for this year would reach six to seven percent similar to what has been projected for China.
At the same time, Secretary Rolando Andaya of the Department of Budget and Management again sought to assuage growing fears of a mass layoff of public servants due to the government’s rationalization program.
Despite repeated assurances from Andaya and other senior Arroyo administration officials, members of militant government labor unions, persisted in their warnings that such retrenchment would push through.
The program seeks to eliminate redundancy in existing government positions, meaning employees who perform similar functions in the same agency or department to make the bureaucracy “lean and mean” and yet stay just as efficient and effective in delivering basic services to the people.
In answer to the warnings, Andaya emphasized: “Let me clarify that for this year, there will be no mass layoff. In truth, we will have mass hiring in the national government,” totalling at least 60,000 new teachers, policemen and nurses.
In the Department of Education alone, Andaya revealed that about 10,000 new teachers will be hired, in addition to 2,000 non-teaching personnel for 2009.
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