Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Secretary Silvestre Bello III underscored on Tuesday, March 9 the heavy implications of following minimum public health standards (MPHS), especially now that a good number of Filipinos have "regained" their jobs amid the pandemic.
"With the rising number of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases in the past week, we need to instil discipline in adhering to basic MPHS - proper wearing of face mask and face shield, washing of hands, social distancing," Bello said in a statement.
"We cannot afford to go back to the hard lockdown situation and lose our jobs again," he pointed out.
Various government officials have sounded the alarm over the recent spike in active COVID-19 cases in the National Capital Region (NCR) or Metro Manila. From just 3,767 active cases in Feb. 22, the figure jumped to 6,635 in March 6 or less than two weeks later.
In the same statement, Bello cited the "highly encouraging" results of the January 2021 Labor Force Survey wherein the country’s labor force increased by 1.6 million. He said that of the number, "1.4 million workers...had regained employment." "Improvement in the employment situation shows that businesses and workers are starting to regain confidence with the safe reopening of the economy. We expect a better and more improved employment performance in the coming months with the vaccine being made available and more Filipinos under the priority categories getting inoculated," the DOLE chief said.
DOLE Information and Publication Service (IPS) Director Rolly Francia later clarified to reporters that the improvements cited by Bello came from comparisons between the October 2020 and the January 2021 figures.
"There is an increase in the labor force partiicpation rate at 60.5% (45.2 Million) from 58.7% (43.6 Million) or an increase of 1.6 million economically active joining the labor force," Francia said.
"Meanwhile, employed persons increased by 1.4 million in January 2021 (41.2Million) compared to 39.8 Million in October 2020," he further said.