Gov’t data hides ‘deterioration in quality of workforce’

Employment data released by the government recently showed an impressive 750,000 jobs created last year but on closer inspection the numbers hide a serious deterioration in the quality of the country’s workforce, analysts said.

"What the numbers clearly show is that employment in the formal sector is shrinking and employment in the informal sector of the labor market is growing," Rene Ofreneo director of the school of labor and industrial relations at the University of the Philippines told AFP.

In other words, jobs in those areas of the economy that contribute to economic growth are deteriorating while more and more people are being employed on a part-time basis doing menial jobs in agriculture and household work."

He said around 65 percent of the country’s workforce is now employed in the informal sector.

In a commentary the Philippine Business Leaders Forum, part of the Economist Intelligence Unit, said significant numbers of jobs have been lost in the construction, health, manufacturing and mining sectors.

"These are key areas in asset formation — including social assets as well as fixed assets — and the decline would appear to place the country in further jeopardy," the commentary said.

According to government figures the fishing sector lost 5,000 jobs last year; mining 9,000; manufacturing 18,000; health and social work 32,000; and construction 73,000.

The area that saw significant employment growth last year was farming, hunting and forestry where 479,000 jobs were created.

"Whether these are salaried jobs or subsistence employment (where people are paid in rice or corn) is not spelled out but we suspect much of it would be the latter," the commentary added.

The second highest growth area was in local private households where some 102,000 jobs were added.

The Forum commentary said: "Altogether these numbers do not suggest to us a picture of robust economic health but rather indicate employment degradation — higher-status jobs being lost and replaced by low-paying ones — and migration to subsistence employment."

Ofreneo said the loss of "mission critical" jobs was becoming serious in many sectors of the country’s economy.

"A lot has been said and written about the loss of health professionals in this country," he said.

"Now we are starting to hear about the impact the loss of pilots, in particular captains, and engineers from the aviation sector," he said.

In an interview with AFP recently the president of Philippine Airlines, Jaime Bautista, warned the company’s $1-billion six-year expansion plan could be cut back if the airline fails to halt the exodus of pilots.

A forum of local aviation officials in Manila recently warned that with the rate local pilots and mechanics were being poached by foreign airlines local carriers could end up grounded by 2010.

Some 140 senior pilots and over 1,900 aircraft mechanics have left for higher-paying jobs overseas in the last five years the forum was told. — AFP