ALBAY Representative Joey Salceda said that as far as economics goes, a 3.1 percent unemployment rate is as good as full employment.
The solon said that jobs report confirms that the Philippines is the fastest growing economy in the region for 2023. This could have been even brighter, if government spending only caught up to the rest of the economy last year.
“President Marcos’s first full year in office created some 1.5 million jobs, including some 44,000 manufacturing jobs, and some 777,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector – primarily driven by the private sector, since public sector spending grew at a modest 0.4 percent last year,” Salceda said.
The President’s policies and his signaling have restored confidence in the private sector. Business expectations are upbeat and more or less where it was prior to the pandemic. The production index in November 2023, just before the jobs survey would have been conducted, was also the highest it had ever been since the pandemic.
Salceda also said that the private sector – especially industry – views this administration as a government they can work well with – and has reflected it in their appetite to hire new workers. The industry sector grew by 869,000 jobs year-on-year, a sign that businesses in capital-intensive sectors are digging in and producing more.
“The agriculture, forestry, and fisheries sectors grew by a combined 555,000 jobs. While I find agriculture jobs growth a net positive, however, I do have some concerns about its magnitude. The agriculture and forestry sector created 715,000 new jobs year-on-year, even as total approved investments in the sector were only at P3.8 billion during in 2022. Fisheries, meanwhile, lost some 159,000 jobs,” he noted.
“I worry that these new agri-sector jobs might not yet be high-quality jobs backed by strong investments. Total employed persons in the agriculture and forestry sector still total to 11 million – 21.8 percent of all employed persons in a sector that produces just 8.9 percent of the economy,” the solon concluded.
