December 8th, 2022
The October jobs report signals that the economy’s reopening is creating new jobs in sectors that suffered greatly during the pandemic. Wholesale and retail trade, transportation and storage, and construction were the biggest jobs creators, pointing to recovery due to full lifting of pandemic restrictions.
The task at hand then are as follows:
1. We must ensure that these new jobs are not seasonal (i.e., for the Christmas consumer rush), but are durable jobs that workers can hold on to;
2. The jobs drivers are in areas where consumer confidence is of the highest importance. Inflation remains the ultimate challenge for the President’s economic team. Prices will determine whether we can keep these jobs, or they are dependent on bonuses and increased spending that is usual during the last quarter of the year.
3. Agricultural employment remains crucial in rural communities, and it saw the largest quarter-on-quarter decline, by around 511,000 jobs. Prices depend on a strong agricultural sector, and so do these jobs. As such, it is vital that we take every effort to increase investments and productivity in the agricultural sector. Apart from the Agri-Agra amendments IRR, I also expect investments in agriculture due to the impending passage into law of the New Agrarian Emancipation Act, which condones some P58 billion in agrarian reform loans for 1.18 million hectares of land. I am also working on ways to increase agricultural financing through the Landbank of the Philippines, which has about P700 billion in free cash that it can invest in the sector, as long as it can generate acceptable returns on these investments. A concerted national effort towards increased food production will result in more agri-sector jobs and lower food prices.
4. There are also jobs losses in the health sector (around 54,000), which we can remedy with stronger labor deployment talks with our partners countries. As a first step, the nurse deployment cap must already be increased from the current cap of 7,000.
Moving forward, I am confident that we have the tools we need to make these jobs gains durable and more inclusive, especially for rural communities.