THE President’s economic team believes the reversal of the gains in employment in April will be temporary and is mainly attributed to the reimposition of the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ).
On Tuesday, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said 4.14 million Filipinos were jobless, a 0.19-million increase from January 2021, but 3.09 million higher than April 2020.
Data also showed 7.45 million Filipinos are considered underemployed or looking for additional hours of work or jobs. This is 1.05 million more than the 6.4 million recorded in April 2020 and 0.86 million more than January 2021.
“This [ECQ reimposition] resulted in a temporary reversal of our first quarter employment gains, which show the tight link between labor market outcomes and the level of quarantine restrictions,” the President’s economic team said in a statement.
“However, compared to last year’s ECQ, the overall labor market outcomes are substantially better as we took a more risk-based approach in imposing restrictions,” they added.
Recovery strategy
Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick T. Chua, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III and Budget Secretary Wendel E. Avisado said the imposition of the ECQ was not wasted and noted that this led to a decline in Covid-19 cases in Metro Manila or the National Capital Region (NCR).
This was crucial since the bed capacity in the NCR Plus area increased and the prevent, detect, isolate, treat, and recover (PDITR) strategy was further enforced.
This, the economic managers said, will help the government implement its three-pillar strategy to ensure the Philippine economy’s recovery.
The three pillars are the further reopening of the economy towards modified general community quarantine (MGCQ) or better; timely implementation of the P2.7-trillion recovery package; and the accelerated implementation of the vaccination program.
They said reopening the economy will expand the age group allowed to go out and resume face to face learning in low-risk areas‚ provided the appropriate safeguards such as the PDITR are put in place.
The amount for the recovery package, the economic managers said, includes the 2021 budget, the 2020 budget extension, the Bayanihan 2 extension, the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (CREATE) Act, and the Financial Institutions Strategic
Transfer (FIST) Act.
The government also hopes that passage of the amendments to the Public Service Act, the Foreign Investment Act, and the Retail Trade Liberalization Act will complement the recovery package.
To speed up the vaccination program, the government expanded the A4 vaccine priority group to include all those who work outside their homes, including government employees.
“With 27.7 million vaccine doses arriving from May to July 2021, we are confident that we can bring more Filipinos safely to work, inoculate 70 million Filipinos or the entire adult population by the end of the year, and recover strongly in the next two years,” the economic team said.
Regions
Meanwhile, the regions where employment was severely affected by the reimposition of the ECQ in March and April were NCR and Calabazon.
These two posted the highest regional unemployment rates in April 2021 of 14.4 percent and 13.4 percent, respectively.
NCR saw an increase of 5.6 percentage points in unemployment in April from the 8.8 percent posted in January. Calabarzon saw a 0.3-percentage point increase in unemployment in April from 13.1 percent in January 2021.
Other regions that saw increases in unemployment in April were Cagayan Valley, Central Visayas, and Central Luzon.
The rest of the regions saw a decline in unemployment, the largest reduction being in the Bicol Region at 4.3 percentage points to 7 percent in April from 11.3 percent in January.
In terms of underemployment, the highest increase was recorded by Caraga at 9.6 percentage points to 29.2 percent in April from 19.6 percent in January.
Central Visayas saw a 7.6-percentage point increase in underemployment to 20.8 percent in April from 13.2 percent in January; and NCR, at 7.3 percentage points to 15.5 percent in April from 8.2 percent in January.
The regions with the largest declines in underemployment were Zamboanga Peninsula, Eastern Visayas and Northern Mindanao.
Read full article on BusinessMirror
