EDITORIAL — Job generation

Over a week before Labor Day, pollster Social Weather Stations released the results of a survey taken last December, which showed that 17 percent of Filipinos wanted to live abroad while seven percent were looking for work overseas.

As of 2019, an estimated 12 million Filipinos or over a tenth of the national population were working abroad. A number of them may no longer return to the Philippines. While the billions remitted by overseas Filipino workers drive consumption, contribute to rosy economic growth figures and keep the country afloat even during global downturns, the OFW phenomenon is a symptom of the lack of decent economic opportunities in the Philippines.

This Labor Day, as in previous years, organized workers will march again, demanding higher wages and other benefits. Malacañang has ruled out a wage increase but has announced several non-wage benefits. Job fairs are being held amid reports of an increasing jobs-skills mismatch across industries, and a deteriorating quality of education that has eroded national competitiveness.

The economic devastation from the pandemic caused the loss of jobs and livelihoods. Post-pandemic recovery must include intensified efforts to implement the long-needed reforms to create an environment that will lure job-generating investments. Instead the OFW phenomenon has lulled policy makers into complacency, thinking that the consumer-driven economic growth makes reforms unnecessary.

As in previous years, a typical move is to press for constitutional amendments ostensibly to remove restrictive economic provisions. Several laws, however, have already been passed to ease those restrictions. And the issues long raised by investors have nothing to do with constitutional provisions: red tape, an unpredictable and compromised judiciary and regulatory environment, the weak rule of law, poor infrastructure, poor connectivity and the highest power costs in Southeast Asia. Even the competencies of the Philippine workforce have been slipping compared with those of regional neighbors due to the substandard quality of education.

The consequences of failure to decisively address these problems are being seen in the level of foreign direct investments that are drawn by the countries in Southeast Asia. The best gift that can be given to workers is an environment that encourages the creation of decent jobs for the greatest number.