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.

Job fairs are simply job facilitation, not job generation. The government is propagating the myth that the problem is job mismatch and, thus, the solution is job facilitation. But figures do not lie—the unemployment rate remains at 7 percent, meaning, some 3 million Filipinos are jobless. Millions more are not officially counted as unemployed because they are no longer looking for work after months and years of desperately looking for nonexistent jobs.

Even a college diploma does not help since 17 percent of the unemployed are tertiary graduates.

The 400,000 jobs allegedly being offered at the May 1 job fairs are not enough to provide employment just for the 530,000 college graduates who entered the labor force this April.

Despite the much-vaunted 6.6-percent increase in GDP last year and the 5-percent average rate in the previous year, the unemployment rate and poverty incidence have remained high. Jobless GNP growth means “Gutom Na Pilipino” for the masses.

In fact job fairs are even contributing to joblessness since human resources personnel of private companies are being retrenched because their work has been outsourced to the labor department and public employment service offices of local governments.

Stop the Labor Day job fairs gimmick. This publicity stunt was invented during the illegitimate reign of Gloria Arroyo and is being continued by the administration of President Aquino despite his anti-Arroyo stance. Gloria the economics teacher and P-Noy the diligent student do not differ in their blind belief in the neoliberal dogma of the free market. Yet the private sector has historically failed in providing full employment.

We need a paradigm shift in the economic policy of the government to make a real step toward resolving the “jobs crisis.” In the short term, the government will have to embark on a public employment program to provide gainful work to the millions of unemployed and underemployed. In the long term, the country needs an economic policy and plan that will result in the development of domestic labor-intensive agriculture and industry.

—RENATO MAGTUBO,

chair, Partido ng Manggagawa,

114 Legaspi St., Barangay Marilag,

Project 4, Quezon City