30,000 PH workers now regularized — Bello

MANILA, Philippines — Around 30,000 workers have been regularized by various companies in the country since January this year, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said on Wednesday.

According to Bello, the labor department is targeting to come up with another Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) wherein companies in the country will voluntarily regularize its employees.

He also noted that the biggest chunk of regularized workers were from the SM Supermalls.

“Ang endo (end of contract) ay talagang tuloy tuloy yan, hopefully we’ll come up with another MOA na kung saan magkakaroon ng voluntarily regularization ang ating mga manggagawa,” he said in an interview with Radyo Inquirer 990 AM

“Meron na sigurong mahigit kumulang 30,000, ang majority ay galing sa SM, kasi ang SM ay nagpadala na naman ng mga regularization na around 13,000, ganun rin ang Jollibee, Century Tuna,” he answered when asked on data of regular employees since January 2019.

With this, Bello said DOLE targets to have 300,000 to 500,000 regularized workers towards the end of the year, in compliance with the directive of President Rodrigo Duterte.

Last year, Bello said SM Malls was able to regularize 11,000 of its workers.

He also asked Jollibee Foods Corp. to regularize more workers as he was unimpressed with the fast food giant’s regularization program. /muf

READ: Bello to Jollibee: Up your ante, regularize more workers