DOLE: 2.5 million workers displaced by COVID pandemic

MANILA, Philippines — An estimated 2.5 million workers nationwide have been displaced due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said yesterday.

Data from DOLE showed the pandemic forced over 93,000 commercial establishments employing 2.5 million workers to temporarily shut down or adopt flexible work arrangement since the start of the outbreak.

“As of May 8, the COVID pandemic affected 93,621 establishments nationwide. A majority of these establishments are in Metro Manila with 17,731,” DOLE Assistant Secretary Dominique Tutay said.

Metro Manila accounted for 894,905 displaced workers and Central Luzon with 293,383.

Aside from Metro Manila, other regions with high worker displacement rate are Davao region with 10,134 and Northern Mindanao with 9,591.

Tutay said of the total number of affected establishments, 78 percent or 73,065 temporarily closed down, while 22 percent or 20,556 adopted flexible work arrangements.

Based on DOLE data, temporary closure of companies affected 1,668,082 workers and flexible arrangements affected 830,359 workers.

A majority of the affected establishments, Tutay said, belongs to wholesale and retail trade as well as accommodation and food services.

Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said the number of displaced workers could increase further if businesses fail to implement flexible work arrangements.

Meanwhile, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III urged the government to hire these unemployed people to trace individuals who had contact with patients that tested positive for COVID-19. 

“We should hire contact tracers en masse to boost our efforts to stop the transmission and defeat COVID-19 while providing jobs,” Dominguez said.

He said the unemployment rate is estimated between 1.2 million and 1.5 million.

“We lost about 1.2 million to 1.5 million jobs. They are temporarily lost, but we can hire these guys to do the contact tracing, which we are having a very hard time with, right?” he said.

“I think we can provide good jobs to people. Because sometimes it takes a contact tracer the whole day to locate one case. We need to hire enough contact tracers to match the numbers we expect that will come with more testing,” Dominguez said during a meeting with President Duterte and members of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases on Monday night.

At the same meeting, Dominguez reiterated the need to ramp up the Build, Build, Build program to energize the economy in a post-COVID scenario.

“We have to do many things in order to revive the economy. I propose that after we are able to control the death rate and the infection, we should restart and accelerate the Build Build Build program subject to compliance with minimum health standards,” Dominguez said.

He said the infrastructure sector remains the best driver of economic growth as it has multiplier effects in terms of employment and shared prosperity.

As this developed, the number of displaced overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) seeking financial aid from the government continues to surge, according to the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration.

OWWA chief Hans Cacdac said the agency approved more than the targeted beneficiaries of DOLE’s Abot Kaya sa Pagtulong (AKAP) program.

“Our target with a budget of P500 million is 50,000 displaced OFWs who have returned home. But we approved more than 51,000 applications, which is more than our allocation,” Cacdac said at virtual press briefing on Monday.

“We have reached our target within a span of two and half weeks of AKAP’s implementation,” he said.

Under the AKAP program, DOLE provides a P10,000 cash grant to 150,000 OFWs affected by the pandemic.

The DOLE allocated over P1 billion for the implementation of AKAP, but the greater bulk of the fund would go to displaced OFWs who are still abroad.

The budget has been distributed to different Philippine Overseas Labor Offices.

Cacdac said the government may hold another round of cash grants to cover the excess number of OFWs who qualified for the AKAP. 

He said OWWA expects to complete the distribution of cash grant to displaced OFWs within the week.

‘Sensible soul’

Senators expressed support for a proposal to hire contact tracers to provide livelihood to workers who lost their jobs due to the pandemic. 

Sen. Panfilo Lacson cited Dominguez as “one of the few sensible souls in the Cabinet“ for proposing to prioritize the mass hiring of contact tracers to boost government’s efforts to eradicate COVID-19.

“Contact tracing is a key first step in addressing the COVID-19 threat. It should provide the baseline data or reference on who to test. Without it, our mass testing will be like shooting at the moon or running around like headless chickens,” Lacson said.

He said if the proposal is successfully implemented, it could be a great help in containing the spread of the infection while generating jobs.

Sen. Cynthia Villar backed a recommendation of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Benjamin Diokno for the government to provide emergency employment to stimulate the country’s “new economy” and ease the effects of the pandemic on the people. 

Diokno said that as the government moves toward the new economy, it should focus on a quick disbursing, employment-generating program. 

He said the budget could be increased by a percentage or two, equivalent to P200 billion to P400 billion that could be used for emergency employment and create two million jobs.

Villar earlier recommended the opening of labor-intensive sectors such as agriculture, construction and manufacturing to avoid social unrest as many Filipinos are getting agitated due to lack of income or livelihood.

Diokno said the two million jobs would be dispersed throughout the country and the workers could get involved in green project such as cleaning of rivers, tree-planting and road maintenance.

Workers will be paid 10 percent lower than the minimum wage rate in the region for working eight hours, five days a week for seven months or from June to December.

“Most Filipinos would really rather go back to work than to wait for aid or relief goods. It is more empowering for them if we let them earn their upkeep. I agree with Diokno that it provides a greater sense of self respect,” Villar said.

Meanwile, there are no Filipinos among the almost 1,500 people who tested positive for COVID-19 in New Zealand, according to Ambassador Jesus Domingo.

New Zealand’s management of the pandemic is “one of the world’s best,” Domingo said.

However, he said there are Filipinos who lost their jobs because of the pandemic.

“Not just Filipinos, but also many New Zealanders lost their jobs too,” he said, adding the situation is still unclear and the embassy is doing the best it can to assist the Filipinos.

The Department of Foreign Affairs said there are 79,995 Filipinos in New Zealand, mostly working as frontliners.

New Zealand reported no new cases of the virus Tuesday. Most businesses can reopen from Thursday under alert level 2. – Christina Mendez, Paolo Romero, Cecille Suerte Felipe, Pia Lee-Brago, Rudy Santos