500K employees lost their jobs amid pandemic — ADB
Around 500,000 Filipinos who held jobs in the private sector were retrenched over the past 12 months as the country continues to cope with the impact of the pandemic, according to the Asian Development Bank.
ADB Country Director in the Philippines Kelly Bird said that the formal sector is struggling to bring the security of tenure, which used to be one of its strongest attributes, to employees.
Meanwhile, the informal labor sector has shown increasing reliability in terms of sustainability and reliability of opportunities.
Bird stated that the ADB is concerned with the medium to long-term “reversal of jobs” that could result in continued loss of employment.
He added that this trend could also increase skills mismatch, high unemployment rate, and skills shortage in some sectors.
Bird noted that the employment gaps can also become a factor for decreased hireability for professionals in the country.
