The physical and mental well-being of workers will suffer if the usual eight-hour working period a day is extended, Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Assistant Secretary Dominique Rubia Tutay claimed.
Aside from this, Tutay, in a televised briefing Friday, Feb. 26, argued that implementing extended working hours at this point in the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic will not help the country's employment situation.
“Kapag in-extend ninyo po kasi iyong hours of work ng ating mga manggagawa (If the working hours is extended), it will not in any way help in terms of employment creation or generation dahil instead na mag-hire po tayo ng maraming manggagawa, i-extend na lamang iyong kanilang oras (because instead of hiring more workers, we will just extend their working hours),” Tutay explained.
The labor official, who heads DOLE’s Employment and General Administration Cluster, also said that the “department is open for consulation” in extending the working hours but stressed that there is reason why working period is only set for eight hours.
“We have to keep in mind that our workers have certain thresholds physically and mentally,” Tutay said.
“If we look at the makeup of our labor force in the Philippines, a huge percentage falls under the production age of our population and therefore, if we want to really reap our demographic dividends, we need these workers to participate inlabor,” she further said in Filipino.