Over 2 million individuals benefited from the ongoing implementation of the government’s National Employment Recovery Strategy (NERS), according to the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).
The agency noted that the said beneficiaries of NERS, which consolidated existing government programs, were given aid to allow them to restore their businesses and livelihoods, upgrade and retool their skills, or access more employment opportunities. The initiative was able to assist 129,000 establishments and generate 780,119 jobs.
DOLE noted the implementation of the NERS, which aimed to help distressed firms and workers cope with the economic slowdown caused by the pandemic, helped in lowering unemployment in October to 7.4 percent from 8.9 percent compared to the previous month.
It also helped increase employment to 92.6 percent in October from 91.1 percent the month before. However, it noted the quality of the said employment still needs to improve as shown by the 862,000 additional workers, who suffered underemployment last October.
Despite these improvements, Labor Assistant Secretary Dominique R. Tutay admitted it may still take some time before the country’s employment figures return to pre-pandemic levels.
“If we look at our pre-pandemic situation, our unemployment rate is at 5.1 percent only, which is equivalent to about 2.4 million but now it is at 7.4 percent that is equivalent to 3.5 million,” Tutay said in an interview with PTV on Tuesday.
“So it will still be a long way before we can catch up,” she added.
Tutay noted that among the remaining challenges for the labor sector to achieve the said pre-pandemic employment figures is the existing operation restrictions of some establishments.
DOLE said it is confident the positive employment trends will continue in the coming months “with the increasing vaccine coverage, the safe reopening of more businesses with further lowering of the alert levels.”