THE number of displaced construction workers from January 1 to October 31 this year has breached the 100,000 mark, according to the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).
In its latest Job Displacement report obtained by BusinessMirror, DOLE said 105,912 workers became unemployed within the given period, making it the sector with the most number of jobs displacement.
Labor Assistant Secretary Dominique R. Tutay said most of the permanently displaced construction workers are from small-scale construction firms, which were forced to stop their operations due to lockdowns.
“But the big ones are pretty stable. That was the explanation of the PCA [Philippine Constructors Association] to us,” Tutay said in a phone interview.
Aside from construction, other industries with the biggest job losses were other service activities with 50,325, administrative and support service activities with 42,277, manufacturing with 30,970, and transportation and storage with 26,039.
Together, these five industries accounted for 255,523 of the 338,032 permanently displaced workers during the first 10 months of the year.
Of the permanently displaced workers, 306,051 were retrenched by 8,638 establishments, while the remaining 31,981 lost their jobs due to the closure of 1,564 establishments.
DOLE registered 1.2 million affected by flexible work arrangements such as reduction of workdays and forced leaves from January to October.
“In terms of establishment size, the majority of the establishments which adopted flexible work arrangements were small enterprises (46 percent or 6,602). On the other hand, a greater number of establishments under micro enterprises implemented temporary closure (52 percent or 6,538),” DOLE said in its latest displacement report.
Labor officials expect the recent relaxation of movement and business restrictions in Metro Manila and other parts of the country will help more workers return to the workforce and reduce the number of the unemployed.