ANGELES CITY- Labor groups yesterday decried as “ridiculous, insulting and hilarious” the government’s “defective statistics” showing poverty and unemployment decline in the country.
“The way (the government) measures poverty is ridiculous, if not insulting. No serious official can defend the poverty threshold of P 10,727 for a family of five or P 50 per person per day for food and P 21 per person per day for non-food needs,” said lawyer Jimmy Miralles of labor group Association of Genuine Labor Organizations (AGLO).
This, as the Pagkakaisa ng Uring Manggagawa (Paggawa) cited the “need for better measurements of deprivation and joblessness” to come out with a realistic view of the state of poverty in the country.
In a statement, Paggawa described as “hilarious” Philippine Statistics Authority’s (PSA) definition of those employed as “a person of working-age who has worked at least one hour in the past seven days.”
“Imagine that! Just find a gig for an hour in the past week, and you are magically employed in PSA data. Combine this with the definition of the unemployed – which is that a person has to be ‘willing to work’ first before being added to the labor force – and you will really end up with bloated employment figures,” Paggawa spokesperson Leody de Guzman said.
The group has forecast “rising joblessness” as it cited Social Weather Station’s (SWS) report indicating that self-related unemployment increased from 19.7% in March 2019 to 21.5% by the third quarter of the year, with 3.9 million supposedly losing their jobs due to retrenchment and 2.7 million due to non-renewal of contract.
Paggawa also scored PSA’s underemployment definition, insisting that “instead of asking if workers are looking for additional work, they should just measure if wages are enough for their daily needs – which the primary factor behind looking for additional work anyway.”
“Instead of underemployment, maybe PSA should be measuring ‘underpayment’,” the group said.
PAGGAWA is composed of labor centers and federations: Associated Trade Unions (ATU), AGLO, BMP, Katipunan ng Samahang ng mga Manggagawa (KASAMA), Katipunan ng Manggagawang Makabayan (KMM), Metro East Labor Federation (MELF), NCL, National Union Based Construction Workers (NUBCW), Socialista, and Solidarity of Unions in the Philippines for Empowerment and Reforms (SUPER), and Workers Advocates for Struggle, Transformation and Organization (WASTO).
