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Friday, March 29, 2024

SSS offers unemployment benefits to 60,000 workers displaced by COVID-19

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State-run pension fund Social Security System said Thursday it is prepared to pay unemployment benefits to 30,000 to 60,000 workers who would lose their jobs as a result of the possible layoffs or closures of companies amid the coronavirus disease 2019 spread.

Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, who is the concurrent chairman of the Social Security Commission, said he was assured by SSS president and chief executive Aurora Cruz Ignacio that the state-run pension fund was ready to shell out P1.2 billion under a worst-case scenario where as many as 60,000 of its premium-paying members could lose their jobs in the months ahead and apply for unemployment benefits.

SSS premium-paying members can avail of unemployment benefits equivalent to a half of their average monthly salary credit for a maximum of two months if they are displaced because of redundancy, installation of labor-saving devices, retrenchment, closure or cessation of operation and disease or illness.

They should have paid the requisite minimum number of monthly contributions for three years to qualify for the unemployment benefit, twelve of which should have been made in the last eighteen months.

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The unemployment benefit is one of the landmark provisions of Republic Act No. 11199 or the Social Security Act of 2018.

Dominguez said he was expecting that affected workers mostly in the travel, tourism and hospitality industries, and, to some extent, those in the manufacturing sector to apply for the unemployment benefit.

“The estimate of the Department of Labor and Employment is that there will be a drop in employment of 30,000 to 60,000 jobs.  This is going to affect mainly the tourism industry, the hotels and airlines. The job displacement will probably last six months,” Dominguez said during a meeting Wednesday with SSS officials.

“There might be some manufacturing jobs that are going to be affected because of the disruptions in the supply chain. But I just got a message today that imports in China are already picking up,” he said.

SSS senior vice president and chief actuary Edgar Cruz said the fund was ready to provide P660 million for the unemployment benefits of affected SSS members and up to P1.2 billion under a worst-case scenario.

The average unemployment benefit that qualified members receive is about P11,000.

Assuming that the 60,000 workers in the worst-case scenario will be dislocated and avail themselves of the benefit, this would amount to around P660 million, Cruz said.

If the computation is based on the maximum cash benefit of P20,000 per applicant, the total amount will reach P1.2 billion, he said.

Cruz said that with the current cash position of the SSS at P21 billion, it could well afford to pay unemployment benefits.

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