MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines should conduct a rapid assessment of its overall employment situation and move toward expanding labor market programs as part of its economic recovery amid the pandemic.
In a report, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) recommended that the government carry out a quick assessment of the national employment situation and identify viable job solutions.
The Manila-based multilateral bank said that assessments of the impact of the pandemic and the identification of potential responsive policies and programs would be crucial to supporting an integrated approach to making micro, small and medium enterprise more viable and facilitate employment creation and preservation.
Since last year, the COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted the labor market after the unemployment rate rose to a record-high 17.6 percent in April 2020.
While it slowed down to 8.7 percent as of October, many Filipinos remain jobless, which eventually resulted in higher hunger rates.
Labor force participation rate also fell, which means that workers who lost their jobs have been discouraged to continue looking for new employment.
The ADB said there is scope for the government to implement policy reforms, programs, and other interventions that would strengthen employment recovery, improve social protection for informal sector workers against future major labor market disruptions, help vulnerable workers improve their labor market outcomes, and protect against child labor.
Further, the ADB suggested that the Philippines should expand labor market programs, including intermediation services and skills training to support workers’ transition back to employment.
“Such programs will support workers to respond to shifts in labor demand, and to find alternative employment,” ADB said.
“The Technical Education and Skills Development Authority should undertake emergency skills needs assessments to identify sectors that are facing immediate skills shortages and organize short training courses to respond to these shortages,” it said.
The government’s move to place the whole Philippines under the most lenient quarantine status next month aims to address hunger and income losses due to the prolonged lockdowns.
Quarantine restrictions that have been in place since March last year have caused a total income loss of P1.04 trillion or P2.8 billion per day, which translates to an average annual income loss of P23,000 per worker.
The ADB also recommended the strengthening of MSME assistance as there remains to be limited number of loans provided to the sector.
Apart from the labor force, the ADB noted that the Philippines should continue to prioritize the national ID program, digitize more government processes, scale up national and local level health responses, and broaden outreach for education and learning program.