Philippines tourism job losses among highest in Asia

MANILA, Philippines — Employment in the Philippines’ tourism sector went down nearly 30 percent last year, among the highest in the region and much more severe than other industries, as the   pandemic forced people to stay home.

According to the latest report of the International Labor Organization (ILO), five countries – Brunei, Mongolia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam – lost a third or roughly 1.6 million tourism-related jobs last year.

ILO said employment losses in tourism were four times greater than in non-tourism sectors. Reduced working hours were also two to seven times bigger than employees not related to tourism.

These five countries employ 12.9 million people in tourism-related sectors.

In the Philippines alone, a 28.4 percent decline was recorded among the 5.1 million tourism jobs in 2020. This compares to the eight percent drop in jobs in non-tourism related sectors.

Tourism-related employment in the Philippines accounts for almost 12 percent of total employment in the country.

Of the five countries studied by ILO, Brunei suffered the largest decline at 40.5 percent, followed by the Philippines. Mongolia recorded a 17 percent drop, while Thailand and Vietnam saw tourism job contraction at 1.3 and 2.7 percent, respectively.

?ILO Asia-Pacific regional director Chihoko Asada-Miyakawa said the impact of the pandemic on tourism has been nothing short of catastrophic.

“Even with countries in the region focusing heavily on vaccinations and designing strategies to slowly re-open borders, jobs and working hours in the tourism-related sector are likely to remain below their pre-crisis numbers in Asia–Pacific countries into next year,” Asada-Miyakawa said.

ILO said that employment losses were especially strong for women in the Philippines. Without food and beverage services, employment in the remaining tourism-related sectors showed a more severe decline in 2020 for women workers in the country.

Further, working-hour losses in tourism are well above those estimated for other sectors. Hour losses reached 38 percent in the Philippines, the highest among the five countries.

Workers in the tourism-related sector working zero hours per week rose two thousand-fold, affecting 775,000 workers in the country.

As formal jobs in tourism declined, the study showed that workers have increasingly moved into the informal sector.

“In the Philippines, the primary tourism-dependent regions adjusted to the slowdown by not only reducing the workforce and hours of work, but also decreasing wages on average by 5.2 percent from the second quarter to fourth quarter in 2020,” ILO said.

ILO senior economist and lead author Sara Elder said the pandemic has invited a ‘re-think’ of medium and long-term tourism strategies, bringing an opportunity to align the sector toward a more resilient, human-centered future.

“Recovery will take time and affected workers and enterprises in the tourism sector will continue to require assistance to replace lost incomes and preserve assets. Governments should continue to implement support measures, while striving to vaccinate all residents, migrant workers included,” Elder said.