Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto on Monday called on the government to attach a “jobs odometer” to next year’s P3.757-trillion national budget and pursue other measures to reduce unemployment.
He made the statement after Social Weather Stations said in its latest survey that close to 10-million Filipinos were out of work in September.
Recto warned that the ‘‘optics will not be good’’ if the government would allow the mass entry of foreign workers to take jobs in the construction sector ‘‘even if this is a condition imposed by a funder of tied loans.’’
He said the “joblessness picture” would also affect the discussions on two crucial bills”•on rice tariffication and the TRABAHO measure”•as many sectors had expressed concerns that the two would trigger job losses.
On next year’s national budget, Recto urged the economic managers “to run the numbers on how many jobs a P3.7-trillion spending will create.”
“We need to calculate this for many reasons. We have to ready the workforce required and identify other job generators,” Recto said.
Next year’s budget earmarks P776.08 billion for capital outlay, with P531.86 billion to be spent by Public Works, and mostly for roads, bridges and buildings, and P51.75 billion by the Transport department for railways, ports, and other transportation facilities.
Not included in this count are the projects funded under the PPP mode, and some projects funded wholly or partly by foreign loans and grants.
In the case of the “tied loans” in which the preferences by the funder were institutionalized in the loan contracts, the government should reject the ones with “high imported labor content,” Recto said.
“Any bias against local labor should not be accepted,” Recto said.
“We have many returning [Filipino workers] who can fill the slots and do the job. No loan should discriminate against Filipino talent. We should insist on a hire-local policy.”
Recto said the “wave” of Filipinos returning home from abroad was enriching the local talent pool.
“They are bringing with them top-notch skills and cutting-edge know-how. And the magnificent skylines of many cities are the best calling cards of their building skills.”
Recto said the “jobs will likewise influence the shaping” of the rice tariffication and TRABAHO bills.
“The employment data will have a say in determining the lengths to which we shall liberalize the domestic rice market and cut the fiscal incentives to industries.
“All estimates point to some form of economic dislocation of farmers if rice import restrictions will be replaced with tariffs. Some 1.1 million rice growers will be negatively affected. Aggregate farmers’ losses could go up to P87.9 billion a year.” Macon Ramos-Araneta
But Recto recognized the existence of a “jobs-skills mismatch.” The demand for skilled labor had been ahead of the supply, he said.
One way of creating an endless stream of talented Filipino engineers, technicians, and craftsmen was to align part of the Philippine educational system to the actual needs of the economy.
“We should wipe out the backlog in technical-vocational equipment and teachers in senior high,” Recto said.
“In addition to more engineering and science courses, we should encourage SUCs to offer tech-voc courses because it is a job that should not be left to TESDA alone. The glory and heritage of government trade schools should be resurrected.”
“The approach should be comprehensive. We cannot ‘build, build, build’ if we do not ‘train, train, train.’”