Only around half of the over 217,000 permanently displaced workers during the first nine months of the year are currently qualified to apply for unemployment insurance, according to the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).
Labor Assistant Secretary Dominique R. Tutay told the BusinessMirror this was based from the consolidated report submitted by their regional offices.
“The current number of issued certificates of involuntary separation from January to September 2020 is 115,305,” Tutay said.
The certificate of involuntary separation is a requirement before a worker could avail of unemployment insurance from the Social Security System (SSS).
The number of unemployment insurance beneficiaries could still increase before the end of the year since the DOLE registered another 66,229 workers, who lost their jobs in first two weeks of this month.
Furthermore, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) also recently released the guidelines for overseas Filipino workers (OFW), who are SSS members, to avail of the unemployment insurance benefit.
In its Memorandum Circular 24, series of 2020, the POEA said qualified OFWs may apply for a certification of unemployment insurance at the POEA Central Office; One-Stop Service Center for OFWs (OSSCO), POEA Regional Center, POEA Satellite Office (RSO) or Regional Extension Unit (REU).
Among those who may qualify for the said benefit are the 250,000 OFWs who were repatriated by the government after their employment abroad were affected by the business disruptions caused by state measures against novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic.
The DOLE said it is anticipating another 100,000 OFWs to come home before the end of the year.
The SSS said it already released P391.28-million worth of unemployment benefits to 29,413 of its members since the government started implementing community quarantine on March 17 to August 11 to contain the spread of Covid-19.
It said it rejected nearly 40,000 applications for unemployment benefits due to “discrepancies and incomplete information of requirements” submitted by the concerned applicants.
Image credits: Nonie Reyes