By Christine Fabro
The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) forecasts a downtrend in labor force participation and an increase in unemployment rate in August, as some areas will be placed under stricter quarantine protocols to curb the spread of COVID-19 and other variants of concern this month.
In a virtual press briefing on Monday (August 2), the DOLE is expecting at least 30,000 to 40,000 permanently displaced workers by end-August due to the two-week enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in the National Capital Region (NCR) and other areas.
Some 127,000 workers under flexible work and ‘no-work, no-pay’ arrangements in the NCR may also be affected by the ECQ.
Labor Assistant Secretary Dominique Tutay said that the plan of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) and National Employment Recovery Strategy (NERS) to create two million jobs may also be affected.
According to June 2021 labor and employment data of the Philippine Statistics Authority, the country’s unemployment rate remained the same as the 7.7% reported a month ago.
Data also showed that the employment rate in June 2021 remained unchanged at 92.3%t from May 2021. This means that 45.08 million were employed out of 48.84 million Filipinos in the labor force in June 2021.
