More investments, lower power rate to solve high unemployment rate

MANILA, Philippines - One of the biggest labor groups in the country on Tuesday said the government must continue to get new job-creating domestic and foreign investments, build new infrastructures and lower power rate to address the high employment.

"The country has been unattractive to big domestic and foreign job-creating investments for quite some time now because of moderately addressed old and basic problems of dilapidated roads, aging sea and air ports, very expensive electricity rate, unpredictable rules and policies of government including tax issues and slow dispensation of judicial cases," Gerard Seno, executive vice president of the Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines, said.

He said these factors are exacerbated by other recurring problems such as severe natural and man-made calamities that forces factories to fold up and retrench workers, prevalent practice of graft and corruption, entry of illegal foreign workers that takes away jobs meant for local workforce, and fragile security situation.

"With the current status, the quality of performance of executive actors vis-à-vis the estimated one million graduates next month, we don’t see any significant improvement in the unemployment figures in the next first and second quarter of the year," Seno added.

"This is the challenge primarily to President Aquino and his entire cabinet and those appointed in the executive positions. The unemployment situation is one of the sum measurements of the effectiveness of those in the government. The major role of those in government is to work harder to create the environment whereby its citizens can find sustainable, decent jobs," Seno said.

In a survey conducted December 11 to 12, 2013 by the Social Weather Stations,  jobless Filipinos rose to 12.1 million during the last quarter of 2013 from 9.6 million survey recorded three months earlier.

Citing records from the Department of Trade and Industry, Seno said the Philippines now ranked sixth in terms of competition for investments among the Association of Southeast Asia Nations region.

The top five competitors in the region are Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Myanmar.