The Philippine economy is now facing its deepest contraction with an unemployment rate hitting to 17.7% this month of June from 5.1% of the same quarter last year. That’s approximately 4 to 5 million of unemployed Filipinos because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Despite this struggle, a “silver lining on job opportunities” is bound to appear as 6,000 jobs will be made open by the business processing outsourcing (BPO) companies amidst this health crisis affecting the country’s labor force. This was recently announced by the Department of Labor and Employment Secretary Silvestre Bello III.
In an interview to the Labor Secretary, he shared that this global downturn may have caused a tragic effect on our economy but it has also brought the resurgence of the BPO companies abroad – now eyeing to office in Metro Manila, Clark, and Cebu areas.
More BPO companies have posted notifications of thousands of additional seats to fill up the manpower requirements and the country hopes that this will somehow alleviate the current situation of at least two million private workers due to the coronavirus pandemic.
In addition to this, Bello emphasized that contrary to the report provided by the Philippine Statistics Authority about the seven-million job displacements, there were only 2.7 million laid-off workers that were reported to the department. He warned employers who went against “haphazard” dismissal of workers and added that should these workers get laid off, they should at least receive a separation pay of one month for every year of service.
