601,000 jobs created but still short of 2003 target

The government has generated 601,000 local jobs for the first seven months of the year but fell short of the one million jobs President Arroyo pledged in her State of the Nation address last year.

But Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas remained optimistic that the Department of Labor and Employment would be able to meet the target before yearend.

"We have met about 62 percent of our target for the year and we have more than enough time to meet such target," Sto. Tomas told reporters.

But data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) indicated that only about 500,000 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) were deployed in the first seven months of the year, possibly increasing the need for local jobs.

The same POEA data showed that the country’s overseas deployment during the same period was also on a downtrend attributed to the recent outbreak of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome and the Iraq war.

Meanwhile, 40 of the 500 OFWs who were reportedly involved in a job site brawl in Libya arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport on board Emirates Airways Flight EK 334 at around 9 p.m. Wednesday.

The Overseas Workers’ Welfare Administration (OWWA) reported that the 40 workers resigned from their jobs at the Daewoo plant in Wafa, Libya after they were involved in a brawl with co-workers from Bangladesh on July 11.

Another batch of 23 OFWs from the Daewoo plant are also expected to arrive on Sunday, the OWWA added.

In a report to OWWA head office, Tripoli-based Wahad Jaafar said Philippine embassy officials and Daewoo are hastening the processing of the workers’ exit visas and return tickets.

This developed after efforts to reconcile the fighting groups failed with half of the 500 workers refusing to return to the Daewoo plant after the brawl.

Although the other half willingly returned to their workplace, the rest refused to renew their contracts, OWWA said.

In a related development, Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) president Donald Dee opposed a House bill that would allow labor federations to set up unions where they have no members.

Dee said that instead of strengthening labor unions, House Bill 5226 would actually hamper the growth of independent unions and unduly favors large labor federations and may even promote corruption and subversion in the workplace.

"In reality (HBO 5226) would make self-organization more opaque and less transparent in a manner that would pave the way for corrupt practices and even insidious and subversive practices," Dee said in a statement. — With Sandy Araneta