Under Duterte: Biggest contraction in employment in 20 years –IBON
Under Duterte: Biggest contraction in employment in 20 years –IBON
PH growth job-destroying in 2017
Going on its second year, the Duterte administration saw the largest contraction in employment in 20 years, research group IBON said in its yearend analysis of economic and political trends. This shows that generaly rising Philippine economic growth remained unfelt by Filipinos and in fact saw a worse jobs crisis, said the group. That government prioritizes pro-big business strategies will only aggravate economic underdevelopment and backwardness, and narrow decent job opportunities for Filipinos in the long run, said the group.
Data from the Philippine Statistical Authority (PSA) shows that the number of employed Filipinos fell by 663,000 to 40.3 million in 2017 from the year before. This is the largest contraction in employment in 20 years or since the 821,000 lost in 1997, said IBON. According to IBON employment re-estimates based on government data*, the number of unemployed rose by 66,000 to 4.1 million. The unemployment rate has also risen to some 9.2% and remains by far the highest in ASEAN, the group noted.
This, even if the Philippines was hailed by the World Bank as the “fastest growing economy in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)”. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) lauded the country’s growth momentum, while Fitch Ratings upgraded the Philippines’ credit rating from “BBB-“ to “BBB” with a stable outlook at yearend 2017. Growth in Philippine gross domestic product (GDP) was at 6.7% in the first nine months of 2017, slower than the 7.1% recorded growth in the same period the year before, but still relatively high even for the last high-growth 7-year period.
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