MEPZ job losses raise concerns over future of PH import, export sectors
Photo courtesy of MEPZ Workers Alliance FB
CEBU CITY, Philippines —Following the shut down of a company in Mactan Export Processing Zone (MEPZ) in Lapu-Lapu City last month, at least 337 workers had been retrenched.
Retrenchments like this can greatly affect the country.
“When there are losses in employment in the economic zones, it affects everything including our dollars, our capacity to import and trade with the rest of the world,” Senator Imee Marcos said.
The latest layoffs in Mepz followed just months after more than 4,500 garment workers had been axed from their jobs last May this year.
The senator added that it was “unfortunate” because “these are in the economic zones that are critical for our well being and export status.”
As a result, Marcos said that the working sector has to “find replacements of these thousands of jobs being lost in Cebu industrial as well as MEPZ.”
Latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed that 2.07 million Filipinos are unemployed which is equivalent to 4 percent, while 97 percent are employed or 49.15 million.
READ: Another layoff in MEPZ: 300 workers axed
4,000 workers lose jobs in Cebu ecozone
Meanwhile, 5.48 million Filipinos are underemployed or 11.2 percent, according to the data shared by the PSA on October 8.
Marcos said that the “numbers can be deceptive because overall unemployment is down to 4 percent.”
“The reality is that in the countryside, employment continues to dwindle. Many, many Filipinos have left their farms. Almost 2 million Filipinos have left their farms. Hindi pa kabilang yan yung underemployment,” she said.
“Matindi yung underemployment natin very seasonal ang trabaho. That’s very, very, obvious in the agriculture sector. They only have work when it’s planting season when there’s water and there’s work again after a long period 90 to 120 to 150 days pag harvest. In the meantime, gutom, yan ang problema,” she added.
Marcos was here in Cebu City to attend a tax forum organized by the Bureau of Internal Revenue and Cooperative Development Authority last October 16. / with reports from Morexette Marie Erram
/clorenciana
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