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MANILA, Philippines -- Labor Secretary Marianito Roque on Monday belied the projections of economist Benjamin Diokno that the global economic crisis will raise the number of unemployed Filipinos to 11.4 million.
At a press conference, Roque refused to make any projections on the effect of the crisis on domestic and overseas employment, saying he would rather get the actual unemployment caused by the crisis.
He said his office will come out with the actual job cuts before the end of the month after tripartite consultations with industry and labor sectors.
"Projections cause undue fear," he said. "But 11 million is too big. That's more than four times the present unemployment of 2.6 million. That figure is unheralded. We've never come close to anything like that even at the height of the Asian financial crisis."
The labor chief said the reported temporary shutdowns, slowdowns, and job rotations directly caused by the crisis have been "manageable."
However, when pressed if he considers a million job cuts manageable, he said a million would still be too big.
Roque said the current jobs in the export-oriented industries of automotive, electronics, and garments which are expected to be directly hit by the crisis do not total one million.
"And even then, (workers there) would not all lose their jobs," he said.
At the same time, Administrator Jennifer Manalili of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration said that the latest figure on overseas Filipino workers who have lost their jobs due to the crisis is 3,567 as of December 24 last year.
The breakdown is 3,321 from 60 companies in Taiwan, 75 from one company in Australia, 69 from one company in the United Kingdom, 45 from two companies in Macau, 21 from one company in United Arab Emirates, 20 from four companies in Korea, and 16 from one company in Brunei.
"The number is almost the equivalent of the average daily deployment of
3,647 for 2008," she said.
