www.nordis.net
Recently, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) released an employment data. According to this data, the unemployment rate in the country reduced from 7.5 percent in January 2014 to 6.6 in January of this year. But this excluded the data from the Visayas Region as explained, the people and businesses there were still recovering from the devastation wrought by the monster typhoon “Yolanda”.
The present government pronounced through the PSA that there were millions of jobs created that Filipinos benefited from. This kind of pronouncement was meant to boost the image of this present administration that is riddled by so many controversies and intrigues. This can be “pogi points” for the president, whose popularity among his kababayans took a great dip, so it can be said that many Filipinos landed jobs under the “tuwid na daan”.
Yet the jobs that were created are but temporary. The employed Filipinos were just “contractuals” hired during the Christmas Season and in the visit of Pope Francis to the Philippines. The director of the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) even admitted that most of those employed were in the service sectors. He said they contributed to the so-called reduction of the unemployment rate of the country (for that period mentioned and without the data from the Visayas).
The service sector of the country, ranks number one in employment opportunities, it is also well known for low wages, lack of or no fringe benefits at all, it is mainly a contractual employment that lasts for three to five months, and that the employees remain vulnerable to labor rights violations. The admission of the NEDA is also an admission that the jobs created are of low-quality.
What the Filipinos need amidst the continuous increase of prices of basic goods and services are permanent jobs. One that gives them security of tenure, humane working conditions especially in the work places, and respect for their labor rights, a basic human right. They really need jobs that give them decent wages that will feed, clothe and shelter their family, and send their children to schools, etc.. They need jobs that will ensure their future.
But until the political structures in society makes life harder for the Filipinos to exist, there can be no peace for the workers nor for the greater Filipinos. There may be months that millions of Filipinos may be “employed” on short contracts thus reducing the number of the unemployed for a while, but that also means for the rest of the year there are millions more who are jobless. For government to toy around with real statististics just to prop up an official’s image is being unfaithful and outright disloyal to the people and country it professes to serve.
The truthful gathering and study of statistics by the PSA would be most helpful to the country and the economy if it were done to give more concrete detail to plans and programs for genuine land reform and towards national industrialization, to create more equity to development and sharing the common resources of our country. # nordis.net
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