The government should do its part in producing more high quality and higher paying jobs in the country in order to make a serious dent in the unemployment and underemployment rate in the country, especially among the youth.
Senator Sonny Angara made this assertion as he stressed that the government cannot be content with just pushing for the creation of the same low paying jobs in the same industries.
During the recent hearing of the Senate Committee on Youth, Angara noted that majority of the jobs being occupied by Filipinos between the ages of 15 and 30 are some of the lowest paying in the country.
Citing Philippine Statistics Authority, the senator noted there are 13.8 million total employed youth in the country and the top industries where they are employed are wholesale and retail, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles; agriculture and forestry; construction; manufacturing; and administrative and support service activities.
In 2021, the PSA noted that 17.2 percent of the Filipino youth were unemployed while 14.7 percent were underemployed.
Based on PSA’s definition, underemployment refers to employed individuals who are still looking for additional work hours or other jobs that can provide them with additional work hours.
“Looking at the top industries, clearly these are not high paying, high quality jobs,” said Angara, who chairs the youth panel.
“Problema pa din yan kasi ibig sabihin hindi pa din nila napapakain ang kanilang mga pamilya o kaya hindi pa sapat yung kinikita nila sa kanila mga pangangailangan (The problem here is that it means they still cannot provide for their family or their salary is insufficient to cover their personal needs),” he further said.
According to Angara, this the reason why there is a high underemployment rate among the youth, which the PSA estimates to be at 2.02 million in 2021.
“It’s clear to me that the quality of jobs that we produce is what we should be looking after. We should be asking ourselves and our government agencies should be asking themselves what we can do to help enable the private sector to produce higher paying, higher quality jobs,” Angara said.
Angara also noted that young people who lose their jobs or fail to obtain jobs are particularly vulnerable to “scarring”, citing a report by the International Labor Organization (ILO).
“Scarring”, he said, refers to the phenomenon where their future labor market outcomes are worse than those of their peers even when the economic conditions where they are situated improve.
The lawmaker said these young Filipino workers are likely to end up accepting jobs for which they are overqualified, which puts them at risk of being trapped in an employment trajectory that involves informality and low pay.
“What we need to do is to have the government agencies involved in job creation to help the private sector, particularly the industries and entrepreneurs, to create higher paying jobs for Filipinos,” Angara said.
He said this is possible by redirecting public investments towards digital, care and green economies that would not only produce a significant amount of new jobs, but also provide a boost to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) over time.