THE Philippine Statistics Authority announced on Nov. 8 that the unemployment rate dipped to five percent (2.50 million) from 5.3 percent (2.68 million) in August and 8.9 percent (4.25 million) in September 2021.
This is good news. The decline in joblessness is certainly one of the gains of the resumption of economic activities following nearly two years of COVID lockdowns.
But wow do we sustain this?
Gearing towards sustainable development and resilience will help address the lingering problem of joblessness.
Disasters that strike the country (such as typhoons, regularly at that) are among the factors that contribute to unemployment.
To address unemployment, sustainable development and disaster resilience must be embedded in the government’s efforts. We need to be disaster resilient not only to protect lives and homes, but also to safeguard our schools, hospitals, malls, buildings, farms, plantations and factories, which all provide employment for Filipinos.
Gearing towards sustainable development will help improve our employment statistics. For instance, renewable energy projects can generate jobs that are badly needed. A study by the Greenpeace shows that 650,000 jobs have been generated by renewable energy in Europe alone.
The government should also promote green jobs and green skills. Other nations encourage their citizens to engage in management in agriculture, forestry, horticulture, environmental information technology, and other careers that contribute to environmental preservation.
All these efforts would complement our existing job generation strategies such as strengthened employment creation and facilitation by local governments, bringing in direct foreign investments to spur local labor demand, and promotion of self-employment, particularly on micro enterprise activities.
As a fundamental development strategy, building resilience would help our government sustain the country’s socioeconomic gains, make a difference in poverty reduction, and eventually ensure the achievement of sustainable development goals.
