GMA failed to bring down unemployment rate - DOLE data

MANILA, Philippines - President Arroyo will step down on June 30 after nine years in office without making a dent in the high unemployment rate, with data from the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) showing the number of jobless Filipinos has remained unchanged.

On the other hand, employment from 1998-2009 grew at a much slower pace than the gross domestic product (GDP), according to records from the Bureau of Employment Services (BLES).

The “boom and bust” employment pattern during the period was largely due to the effect of weather disturbances and economic slowdown, BLES added.

Extreme weather disturbances in 2000, 2003, 2005 and 2009 adversely affected agricultural employment, which accounts for 38 percent of the country’s workforce.

The economic slowdown also resulted in the decline of full-time employment and increase in the number of part-time workers.

Between 2008 and 2009 employment grew by 2.9 percent, but the growth occurred almost entirely among part-time workers, according to BLES.

“This suggests that while the quantity of employment may continue to expand in times of economic downturn, it is the quality of employment that actually suffers because people will continue to work or accept part-time jobs with lower pay to cope with the difficult situation,” BLES said.

While employment exhibited a highly volatile trend, the unemployment rate showed very little change over ten years, according to BLES.

After a slight decline of less than one percent from 1998 to 1999, unemployment rate stood still at 11 percent from 2000 to 2004, BLES said.

“A break occurred only in 2005 due to the adoption of a new official definition of unemployment in conformance with the international standard definition,” BLES said.

Unemployment was pegged at about 7 percent from 2007 to 2009, according to BLES.

“The absence of a noticeable movement in the unemployment data series in comparison with the observed trend in GDP and employment suggests that unemployment as an indicator is less sensitive to developments in the economy and labor market,” BLES said.

In the past decade, two recessions – the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the 2008-2009 global financial meltdown – and political instability in 2001 affected the employment situation in the country, according to BLES.

“Political events also weighed down on economic performance, the most notable among these were the political turmoil in 2000 that culminated in another people power revolution in 2001,” BLES said.