6,000 firms violated wage law — DOLE

More than 6,000 establishments were found to have violated minimum wage statutes from January to August this year, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) reported yesterday.

Labor Undersecretary Jose Español said the violations were uncovered by inspections, which also revealed that 12,861 of the 25,143 firms visited by labor inspectors also violated other labor statutes. A total of 2,276 firms were found violating the 13th month pay law, which requires employers to pay all regular employees an extra month on or before Dec. 24 of each year, Español said.

Aside from non-payment of the 13th month pay, other violations included non-payment of overtime pay, non-compliance with service incentive leave rules and non-payment of regular, special and rest day pay.

Español said the inspections were part of the DOLE’s pledge to ensure that companies comply with labor laws and occupational safety and health requirements.

While Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Domingo conceded that the economic situation is now difficult, she stressed that hard times do not exempt employers from paying benefits mandated by law.

Among the mandated benefits are the wage increases set to be granted some five million workers nationwide this year.

The National Wages and Productivity Commission (NWPC) estimates that 3.1 million of the five million are minimum wage earners in small companies while the remaining 1.9 million workers are employed in medium and large firms.

NWPC officer-in-charge Esther Guirao said the wage increases to be given this year were set by regional tripartite wages and productivity boards based on the socioeconomic profile of a particular area.

Meanwhile, DOLE data showed that the country’s labor force grew by 8.1 percent, or 2.19 million new workers, to 29. 3 million in the first six months of the year from over 27 million in the same period last year.

According to data from the Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics (BLES), this increase in the workforce should reduce the country’s unemployment rate to 10.1 percent from 11.2 percent.

The growth in the workforce was spurred largely by gains in the agricultural, industrial and services sector and indicates that the country appears to be coping with the global economic downturn.

"The global downturn has not affected us the way it has hit other countries, possibly because of the resiliency of the Filipino," Sto. Tomas said.

"We can even say that our employment situation has remained somewhat robust and we can expect it to grow despite the recurring cases of layoffs and retrenchments," said Labor Undersecretary Manuel Imson.

Between January and September this year, BLES data showed that 47,850 workers were laid off due to company closures, Imson said while noting that more workers were employed than those laid off.

Data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), on the other hand, showed that a total of 615,697 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) were deployed from January to August this year, up by 2.16 percent from 602,679 deployed in the same period last year.

Imson said growth in OFW deployment is expected to continue until the end of 2001 as some 2,300 OFWs leave daily for jobs in various destinations abroad.

He also reported that the country’s Public Employment Service Offices (PESOs) and Employment Promotion Divisions helped a total of 474,740 workers find jobs in the first nine months of the year.

The PESOs and EPDs placed 366,247 workers in local jobs and also provided part-time jobs to 95,277 students under the special program for the employment of students (SPES) and the work appreciation program.

Another 42,776 workers were also assisted in self-employment activities while 8,405 workers were provided skills training, he said.