‘Improved’ Employment Driven by Survival Instincts, Not Arroyo’s Programs

All these simply mean that contrary to government’s contention, most Filipino workers found jobs by themselves – driven by the instinct to feed their families and survive – and not through any meaningful form of state intervention or job creation program. This was reflected in the kind of additional jobs created in the domestic labor market, again as affirmed by the latest Labor Force Survey results.

Increases in Productive Sectors

By major economic sector, the bulk of the increase — 66.4 percent — came from the services sector, followed by agriculture with 28.3 percent and industry, 5.3 percent. In the industrial sector, the increase was driven by mining, utilities and construction as the number of employed workers in manufacturing actually declined by 49,580 as a direct result of the global crunch.

Employment in construction grew by 115,180 but the data did say how many were created through government’s infrastructure projects under the CLEEP. If there was an unusual rise in construction activities as a result of the said program, it should have been reflected in the share of construction employment to total employment.

But the portion of those employed in construction to the sum of employed persons stood at 5.6 percent, barely moving from its 5.5 percent average in 2008 and 2007. What was certain, as far as the Labor Force Survey data are concerned, was that the significant drop in manufacturing jobs offset the gains made in construction and thus limited the overall contribution of industry to job generation.

Agriculture employment in the Philippines, meanwhile, has always been mainly seasonal and thus could rise without government intervention. But jobs created in agriculture are highly insecure and temporary, and mainly self-employment and unpaid family work.

Employment in Services

Breaking down the increase in the number of employed persons in services would reveal that most of the additional jobs — 35.7 percent of the increase in services employment — came from wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles, and personal and household goods.

It was followed by private households with employed persons, which accounted for 14.3 percent; hotels and restaurants, 11.8 percent; and public administration and defense and compulsory social security, 11.1 percent.

Note that aside from the latter, the sub-sectors that posted the largest contributions in the rise of employed persons in services were those not directly boosted by government intervention. Most of the jobs created in retail trade and repair, for instance, were self-employment and unpaid family work as confirmed by the earlier discussion on jobs generated by class of worker. The increase in employment in private households, meanwhile, can be interpreted as a result of the coping adjustments that families took up (i.e. children dropping out of school to become household helpers, etc) amid the worsening economic condition.

Natural Limits

Manipulated employment figures and deceptive government propaganda of an improving labor situation, of course, have their natural limits. They become increasingly useless in obscuring the magnitude of job scarcity as the domestic jobs crisis intensifies, which for now is only somewhat mitigated by the aggressive labor export policy of the Arroyo administration.

But the still unfolding effects of the global financial and economic crisis on many countries worldwide will certainly accelerate the deterioration of the domestic labor market, which manipulated employment data and empty propaganda could no longer conceal and which labor export may no longer slow down. (Bulatlat.com)