2-3 million job losses seen from shift to e-vehicles

MANILA, Philippines — About two to three million jobs may be lost over the next three to five years due to a huge shift from gasoline to electric vehicles, an official of the Employers’ Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) told a Senate panel yesterday.

During a public hearing on the proposal to revise the National Apprenticeship Program Act presided over by Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, chairman of the Senate committee on labor and employment, ECOP governor Antonio Sayo said the removal of taxes made many players in the automotive sector go for e-vehicles.Sayo was referring to Republic Act 11697 or the Electric Vehicle Industry Act, which provided for the development of the electric vehicle industry.

The law provides a 30 percent discount for battery electric vehicles and a 15 percent discount for hybrid-electric vehicles from the payment of the motor vehicle user’s charge imposed by the Land Transportation Office.

“Just to give an example, our forecast of job losses due to electric vehicles is about two million. And the architecture for batteries, design and everything is about 18 months. So we fear that the jobs that will be lost as a result of technology over the next three to five years are two to three million,” Sayo added.

“There’s a huge shift to electric vehicles because the taxes were removed and therefore almost all automotive companies are getting into that. Those who will lose their jobs are those who are familiar with gasoline-type vehicles,” he noted.

“So if we go from industry to industry, we would find out although generally the applicability of the apprenticeships is great, we will have problems with some industries,” he said.

Sayo pointed out that new e-vehicles are introduced almost every month and there are charging stations in malls and other areas.“We will have problems with jeepney drivers and if we do not define it, how can we re-skill and retool the automotive sector?” he said, vowing to submit their position paper to Estrada’s committee within a month.