No mass retrenchment, Tsinoy businessmen say

Workers nationwide can now heave a sigh of relief.

Various business groups yesterday gave assurances that there will be no mass retrenchment of workers despite the weakening business climate in the country.

The Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry Inc. (FFCCCII) and the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) said that retrenchment would be their last option in cutting down operations cost.

Robin Sy, FFCCCII president, said that laying off workers will not solve the prevailing economic difficulty but would only bring in more problems for the economy.

"There are other ways to solve the problem and retrenchment is not one of them because high unemployment is a much worse problem than the current fiscal crisis," Sy explained.

FFCCCII chairman for industrial relations Benjamin Co echoed the same sentiment as he urged the national government to refrain from laying off workers to curb the ballooning public deficit.

"If the government would cut down the number of government offices, there would be more unemployed and that means less people buying goods which could lead to a stagnant economy," Co said.

While admitting that the economic condition at this time is not conducive to business, Co said the FFCCCII is still encouraging its 170-member business organizations to expand and hire more workers.

"Everyone should be doing some belt tightening but we would rather hire more workers to boost the country’s economic condition," Co pointed out.

There are 820,000 companies nationwide and if each of them would hire one or two workers, it would mean additional one to two million employed Filipinos, Co said.

ECOP, on the other hand, vowed to exert all efforts to preserve jobs and avoid mass retrenchment of workers to stave off a double-digit unemployment rate in the country.

"We shall preserve jobs in the face of economic challenges by adopting measures with minimal labor displacements and retrenchment as a last resort," ECOP said.