Employers are now looking at 2022 as recovery year instead of 2021 due to the “very slow” reopening of business with the medical and the military making decisions for the domestic economy.

In the regular weekly “Tapatan sa The Aristocrat” virtual forum on business, economy and agriculture, Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) President Sergio Ortiz-Luis Jr. and Henry Lim Bon Liong, president of the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc. (FFCCCI) both agreed that recovery will start in 2022 yet.

 Ortiz-Luis was confident that businesses will get out from their current situation as they have been continuously improving. But because the improvement has been “too slow”, employers are now  pushing back their recovery target by one year more. “Initially, we thought of recovery at the beginning of 2021 but we are now looking at 2022 where we can start recovery,” he said.

At the height of lockdowns, he said, 50 percent of micro enterprises closed their operations and this sector accounts for 90 percent of total businesses. “Some are still trying to reopen and many are still closed,” said Ortiz-Luis.

What is worrisome, he said, is that the big businesses are now closing down or downsizing. He cited the case of Makati Shangri-La and the announced layoffs at Philippine Airlines.

 Likewise, Lim expects that economic recovery and businesses going back to normal operations will start by next year yet because the achievement of herd immunity will happen by end of this year yet.  

“We fully support all programs of the government such as the infrastructure, Build Build Build, Plant Plant Plant and the vaccination this year. Hopefully we will recover a bit and go to normal by start of next year because by end of this many have been inoculated and the election next year will be is smooth and transparent with a new leader leading us,” Lim said.

Meantime, Ortiz-Luis blamed the current slow economic recovery to the government’s reliance on medical and military officials in deciding matters of the economy.

“We should really pause and see. We are relying too much on medical for economy. There should be less lockdowns, but more on protocols although there are also unnecessary protocols,” he pointed out.  

For instance, he pointed out the government decision not to allow all public mass transportation to operate as a major reason why workers could not report for work.

Instead, he said, the government is trying to further make it more difficult for transport operators by pursuing the jeepney modernization program, RFID which is already taking 7 years to implement, motor vehicle inspection, and car seats policy at a time when Filipinos are so financially hard up.

“At this time, we should be reducing cost,” he said.

Based on its survey during the height of the pandemic, a worker has to spend between P500 to P800 in fares daily to report to work. A company cannot continue subsidizing their transport cost.

The ECOP president even doubted the real number of unemployed Filipinos as reported by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), which data only represents the formal sector. He said that DOLE data is only for the formal sector which is 16 percent only of the 44 million workforce in the country. He said DOLE has not data of the 84 percent informal workers.