Wanted: Construction workers

From the results of the latest Labor Force Survey (LFS) being regularly done by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), it showed the country’s unemployment rate rose slightly to 5.1% in October. Compared to a year-ago level for the same month, this inched up a little bit from 5%.  In real numbers, this translates to around 2.201 million Filipinos who are unemployed as of October, or it went up from 2.185 million level in October last year.

This level of unemployment, though, is still within the target range of 4.7 percent to 5.3 percent for 2018 under the Philippine Development Plan (PDP), the PSA cited.

Such unemployment rate is thus relatively within tolerable level of jobless people in the total number of working population in a country. As defined by our policymakers, Filipinos who are 15 years old and above, able and actively looking for work are counted in our country’s labor force.

 Based from our current country’s estimated total population of 106.5 million this year, the LFS survey counted as much as 71.866 million Filipinos aged 15 years old and over who fall under the definition of labor force as of this year. But for this period, only 60.6% are either working or looking for work, or this is about 43.3 million who are actually in the work force.

The PSA defines employed persons into any of the four categories: (1) wage and salary workers; (2) self-employed workers without any paid employee; (3) employers in own family-operated farm or business; and, (4) unpaid family workers.  

Those working in private establishments continue to account for the largest employment source, or 50.3% of the total employed for the same period. The second largest category of workers is the self-employed who make up 27.2% of the total employed. Unpaid family workers accounted for 5.3% of the total employed.

Among the major economic sectors in the country, the services sector was the top employer, accounting for 56.8% of the total employed. The majority, or 64.4% of those who are employed, are wage and salary workers.

The same PSA report, however, noted there is still a large number of Filipinos who are underemployed, or those who work for less than 40 hours in a week and are looking for more gainful employment. The PSA defines underemployment as “those employed persons who express the desire to have additional hours of work in their present job, or to have an additional job, or have a new job with longer working hours.”

The country’s underemployment rate fell to its lowest in over a decade. It dropped to 13.3% in October this year from 15.9% in October last year. This is equivalent to 1.1 million less underemployed workers from 6.6 million last year.

National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Secretary Ernesto Pernia believes this decline may have been brought about by the improvement of the quality of work available nationwide.

“We attribute this to expanding employment opportunities and the approval of nominal increases in regional wages supported by labor productivity improvements,” Pernia pointed out.

The same latest LFS, the PSA explained, showed the ranks of the unemployed rose marginally in October due to a confluence of factors that include recent typhoons that wrought havoc in the Philippine agriculture sector. The NEDA chief rued many agricultural workers were displaced by the series of destructive typhoons “Ompong” and “Rosita,” not to mention large tracts of farmlands and crops destroyed this year.

It was also reflected in the minus 0.4% contribution of the sector to the country’s overall growth rate for the third quarter this year. Actually, it was a further decline from agriculture production of minus 0.2% in the second quarter.

But the most promising development is the reported shortage of construction workers in the country.

This we learned last week from former Senate president Manny Villar Jr. who has gone back to running their family-owned Vista Land real estate business empire. Visiting us at the Tuesday Club last week at the EDSA Shangri-la in Ortigas, Villar told us at least 10,000 construction workers are needed by Vista Land for a number of their construction projects in various parts of the country.

Since he run but lost in the May 2010 presidential election, Villar has retired from politics and devoted himself to managing Vista Land as its chairman of the board.

Speaking for their own companies, Villar disclosed even women workers in construction jobs are in demand. While indeed many Filipino construction workers have gone abroad for employment, Villar believes the shortage is much largely due to the increase of infrastructure and other construction-projects that include the government’s “Build, Build, Build” infrastructure projects lined up all over the country. 

One of his sons, Department of Public Works and Highways Secretary Mark Villar is among the Cabinet officials of President Rodrigo Duterte in charge of implementing his administration’s “Build, Build, Build” projects. 

Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Secretary Silvestre “Bebot” Bello III confirmed over the weekend there is indeed unmet demand for construction workers. In fact, Bello disclosed, DM Consunji Inc.  (DMCI), one of the biggest construction companies in the country today, has sought DOLE’s assistance to source at least 5,000 construction workers for immediate hiring.

The sheer number of required construction workers prompted DOLE officials to consider conducting what Bello calls as “reverse jobs market” abroad. As of latest official DOLE statistics, there is an estimated 2.3 million overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who work abroad at anytime from April to September 2017. Bello disclosed the DOLE is mulling such “reverse jobs market” as one option to bring back to the country many of our OFWs, especially those with construction skills.

In this way, our OFWs need not work and live abroad far away from their families with such gainful employment available right here in our country.