Employment figures seen to improve

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Labor  and Employmnent (DOLE) projected yesterday a better employment situation in the coming months. Acting Labor Secretary Romeo Lagman said the employment situation, particularly for the agricultural sector would be much better with the onset of the rainy season.

“With the onset of the rainy season, employment situation in agriculture would improve

and mitigate the adverse effects of El Niño,” Lagman said.

Lagman attributed the growth in number of unemployed as indicated in the April survey done by the National Statistics Office (NSO) to the El Niño phenomenon that affected the  country last summer season.

Based on the NSO survey results, the number of unemployed Filipinos rose by nine percent in April or an additional of 270,000 from the 2.82 million unemployed during

the same period last year.

But even with devastating El Nino phenomenon, Lagman stressed that employment

in the country still posted an increase and achieved a robust growth in the services and industry sectors and a marked improvement in the number of persons engaged in full time

jobs.

“The number of employed persons in the country increased by 1.2-percent reaching 35.411 million in April 2010 from 34.997 million a year ago,” Lagman pointed out.

However, Lagman admitted that the gains were offset by a large decline in agricultural

employment particularly in Cagayan Valley, Western Visayas, Eastern Visayas, Zamboanga Peninsula, Davao, Central Mindanao, and Caraga.

“Employment figures in these regions fell due to the impact of the severe drought brought about by the El Nino phenomenon,” Lagman explained.

But Lagman stressed that the employment growth especially in the services and industry  sectors clearly proved economic growth achieved in the first quarter of the year.

At the same time, he said, the quality of employment also improved as the number of persons in full-time employment rose by 9.5 percent while those in part-time employment

fell by 9.6 percent.