Effects of Unemployment to the Philippine Economyu
Why is Unemployment high in the Philippines?
As a result of the global economic crisis, which drastically cut our exports and slowed down our OFW (overseas Filipino workers) remittances, Philippine economic growth in GDP (gross domestic product) terms which was registered at 7.1 percent in 2007 was brought lower to 3.8 percent last year and to just about 1 percent in the first half of the year.
Despite the slowing down of the domestic economy, however, Philippine unemployment rate remained at almost the same level as it was before the current crisis. In the January, April and July Labor Force Survey this year, the country?s unemployment rate was placed at 7.7 percent, 7.5 percent, and 7.6 percent, respectively. These do not differ very much from what they were at 7.4 percent, 8.0 percent, and 7.4 percent, respectively, for the same months of January, April and July of 2008 or the 7.8 percent, 7.4 percent, and 7.8 percent, respectively, for the same aforementioned months in 2007. What helped the Philippines from not increasing its unemployment rate even with the slowing down of the Philippine economy that came with the global recession?
While our unemployment rate did not worsen, it could still not be denied, however, that our unemployment rate, which averaged at 10.4percent annually from 2001 to 2008 (higher still had the government not changed the official definition of the unemployed in 2005) is one of the highest in the ASEAN, if not in the whole Asia Pacific Region. In the same eight years, and based on Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas compiled data, the unemployment rate was 3.4 percent only in Malaysia, 8.9 percent in Indonesia, 2.3 percent in Thailand, and 3.4 percent in Singapore. In South Korea, it was 3.5 percent, Taiwan, 4.3 percent, China, 3.9 percent and Vietnam, 5.6 percent. What makes the Philippine unemployment rates much higher compared with our neighbors?
To the first question above, I think that our having a very high unemployment, even before the
As a result of the global economic crisis, which drastically cut our exports and slowed down our OFW (overseas Filipino workers) remittances, Philippine economic growth in GDP (gross domestic product) terms which was registered at 7.1 percent in 2007 was brought lower to 3.8 percent last year and to just about 1 percent in the first half of the year.
Despite the slowing down of the domestic economy, however, Philippine unemployment rate remained at almost the same level as it was before the current crisis. In the January, April and July Labor Force Survey this year, the country?s unemployment rate was placed at 7.7 percent, 7.5 percent, and 7.6 percent, respectively. These do not differ very much from what they were at 7.4 percent, 8.0 percent, and 7.4 percent, respectively, for the same months of January, April and July of 2008 or the 7.8 percent, 7.4 percent, and 7.8 percent, respectively, for the same aforementioned months in 2007. What helped the Philippines from not increasing its unemployment rate even with the slowing down of the Philippine economy that came with the global recession?
While our unemployment rate did not worsen, it could still not be denied, however, that our unemployment rate, which averaged at 10.4percent annually from 2001 to 2008 (higher still had the government not changed the official definition of the unemployed in 2005) is one of the highest in the ASEAN, if not in the whole Asia Pacific Region. In the same eight years, and based on Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas compiled data, the unemployment rate was 3.4 percent only in Malaysia, 8.9 percent in Indonesia, 2.3 percent in Thailand, and 3.4 percent in Singapore. In South Korea, it was 3.5 percent, Taiwan, 4.3 percent, China, 3.9 percent and Vietnam, 5.6 percent. What makes the Philippine unemployment rates much higher compared with our neighbors?
To the first question above, I think that our having a very high unemployment, even before the