Failure in job creation

In a Cabinet meeting Tuesday, President Aquino asked his Cabinet to explain what went wrong that resulted in the number of unemployed, increasing 6% to 27.5%, totalling 12.1 million jobless Filipinos.
P-Noy asked the Cabinet for an action plan on poverty reduction. It appears that the main program to combat poverty is the conditional cash transfer (CCT) program, which has now ballooned to P62 billion.

Analysts have expressed the view that the CCT has not been effective in alleviating poverty.  The ‘cash for work’ programs of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) have been too small, and are benefitting only a few thousand of the 12.5 million unemployed.

The infrastructure spending has focused on big ticket projects and not in job intensive projects like farm-to-market roads and small communal irrigation systems.

Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma said the Aquino administration is focusing on job creation in manufacturing and more highly remunerative sectors. He gave no further details.
Economics professors Victor Abola and Benjamin Diokno expressed the view that the 7.2% gross domestic product (GDP) growth did not translate in the hiring of more workers.

Diokno said that even the multibillion-peso school-building program has been awarded to big-time contractors, instead of the thousands of small contractors that used to do the job.

Other economists also said that we need to attain a 9% GDP growth to create jobs. The projection of GDP in 2014 by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) is still at 6.5-7.5% GDP growth.

The bottom line — “The Aquino administration has failed to create jobs.”

SEARCH FOR TRUTH By Ernesto M. Maceda (The Philippine Star)