DOLE moves to improve labor market
The Department of Labor and Employment central office recently ordered all its regional offices to closely monitor the employment situation of their respective areas of jurisdiction.
Likewise, DOLE Secretary Marianito Roque directed all regional offices to initiate interventions and safety nets to improve the labor market.
Roque made the directive following the release of the results April 2008 Labor Force Survey conducted by the National Statistics Office which showed that unemployment rate in many regions in the country, including Central Visayas, is increasing.
Roque said the weakening of the labor market is brought about by increasing fuel prices that weighed down the country’s economic growth in the early part of the year.
The latest LFS report revealed that the unemployment rate in April rose from 7.4 percent to 8 percent. Correspondingly, the number of unemployed persons increased from 222,000 to reach 2.914 million in April 2008.
The survey also showed
The number of employed persons in Region VII also dropped to 92.3 percent in April 2008, from 93.2 percent in January.
The report also showed that the total employed persons in the country were estimated at 33.536 million or a decline of less than one percent from last year.
However, Roque said there is a positive modest employment growth in the agriculture, which increased by 0.4 percent and service sector that rose by 0.2 percent.
Roque said DOLE programs and interventions in employment generation and facilitation, as well as employment preservation, have contributed a lot in mitigating the decline in employment brought about by current economic crisis. — Wenna A. Berondo/LPM
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