UP Ibalon Bicol: Sen. Francis Escudero says the Arroyo government must face joblessness squarely

Sen. Francis Escudero says the Arroyo government must face joblessness squarely

5/14/2009 | Posted by mesiamd | Edit Post

In what Sen. Francis Escudero thinks as a defensive stance of the government, officials of the Arroyo administration wants to have their own survey, casting doubts on what the Social Weather Stations (SWS) data says about joblessness. A few days ago, the SWS disclosed that 34.2% or 14 million adult Filipinos are jobless. This huge number of idle people account for about 15% of the total population.

It’s truly alarming to know that one third of Filipino adults is jobless. But as Escudero said the Arroyo government must face the problem honestly “instead of using as an excuse the semantics of the definition of unemployment" as reported by the SWS.

Unemployment, by any other name, is still joblessness, and it speaks loudly of the failure of government to put up adequate policies to address to the problem. The reality is that there is widespread and increasing unemployment," ---Malaya (05/13/09, Naval, G; Benga, R)

Labor Sec. Marianito Roque is mulling on another survey---- the Labor Force Survey (LFS) by the National Statstics Office (NSO) hoping that the joblessness rate will come out lower than the SWS report. But in practrical terms, there is little to gain from thinking that unemployment must be lower than what the SWS data show. What is important is government's response to the problem that the entire nation already knows.

The belief that widespread adult joblessness must be demonstrated by huge numbers of idle people in the street is probably erroneous. Perhaps, the better indicator is the number of emaciated children-beggars who ran around while their jobless parents stay at home. (Photo Credit: Edgar J. Ediza) =0=

RELATED BLOG: "14 million Filipino adults are jobless, but the Arroyo administration thinks it’s just a “perception”" Posted by mesiamd at 5/12/2009

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Labels: Department of Labor, joblessness, Sen. Francis Escudero, Social Weather Stations (SWS), SWS, Totie Mesia, unemployment

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Sen. Francis Escudero says the Arroyo government must face joblessness squarely

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