Why job fairs are a farce
The Labor Day job fairs announced by Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz are a farce. These job fairs are a gimmick—to cover up the truth that government is not doing anything significant to solve mass unemployment.
The Labor Day job fairs announced by Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz are a farce. These job fairs are a gimmick—to cover up the truth that government is not doing anything significant to solve mass unemployment.
Will 2013 usher in some pleasant improvements for the Philippines, or will it be just a repeat of 2010, 2011 and 2012? The past three years have been about economic gains, some of which can be traced to the previous administration’s initiatives—not new growth, just a continuation from the past. In 2012, the Aquino administration [...]
“PHILIPPINE ECONOMIC growth likely slowed in Q3,” blared a news headline about a forecast attributed to a large investment bank, just a few days before the official data came out—announcing the exact opposite. It can be hazardous indeed to make fearless forecasts on the economy, especially when released shortly before official data are due to come out. But then again, most financial institutions had actually predicted a slower third quarter, only to be proven wrong with the third-quarter data showing a surprising 7.1-percent surge instead. This is well beyond what was already considered a surprising 6.4-percent growth posted in the first quarter. Economics has never been a precise science, and not even the most sophisticated mathematical or statistical tools can help when there simply are too many unknowns in the equation.
Blah-blah over inanities like “the people are my Boss” and “the impossible becoming possible” may be inspiring to some. For most Filipinos, however, these mean absolutely nothing. What matters is whether a President has created a national environment that generates jobs enough to allow most Filipinos to keep body and soul together.
I agree with most of what President Aquino said in his State of the Nation Address but he forgot (or deliberately avoided mentioning) an important problem: squatting.
President Aquino took a huge gamble when he took on the then Chief Justice. Had he lost, his presidency would have been irreparably compromised. He’d have been a lame duck way ahead of time. But he won. His obsession with corruption is bringing results. The key question now is: Will the then Chief Justice’s comeuppance serve as the catalyst to go after others? With this President, there’s a good chance.
“Jobless ranks hit new peak” ran BusinessWorld’s headline last Monday, May 21, based on the new SWS release, “Adult unemployment at record-high 34.4%,” sourced from the March 10-13, 2012, Social Weather Survey.
I was not surprised at all that the government built a fence of colorful billboards, essentially promoting tourism, on the bridge along the highway that runs from the Ninoy Aquino International Airport to the Philippine International Convention Center, where the Asian Development Bank held the 45th annual meeting of its board of directors. Indeed, public officials have always been famous—nay, notorious—for hiding anything that others may consider an eyesore.
My regular readers would know that I like to assess the state of our economy via the PiTiK test, my mnemonic for presyo (prices), trabaho (jobs) and kita (income). Of the three, the first is the one most frequently monitored by the government (monthly). The other two are measured every quarter, and the last jobs data were for January 2012, while the last income/output data were for the end of 2011. While the first quarter of 2012 is behind us, the corresponding growth data won’t be out for another month.
The headline “Unemployment up—SWS” in last Thursday’s BusinessWorld compares the adult unemployment rates of 24.0 percent in December 2011 and 20.2 percent in September 2011, found by the last two SWS national surveys.
It seems that I spoke too soon last week as I ended my article with the anticipation that the GDP news to be announced the next day was likely to “be upbeat, and certainly will not disappoint.” I argued that the latest jobs data suggested so, with 1.4 million new jobs created in the past [...]
More than a quarter of a million Filipino domestic helpers are expected to be displaced with the decision of Saudi Arabia to freeze hiring as a result of a deadlock between the Philippines and the Middle East kingdom over salaries and working conditions. The alarm has been raised by Manila-based recruitment agencies that have criticized the Philippine government for not anticipating the backlash from Riyadh, which is in a similar deadlock with Jakarta over Indonesian domestics.
