PH ‘moderately improving’ on jobs, economy, but…

ARMING THE RANKS The Marcos administration’s Trabaho Para sa Bayan Act aims to address underemployment and upskill Filipino workers, such as these mainstays of a shoe factory in Marikina City in this photo taken on Sept. 27, 2023. —Grig C. Montegrande

MANILA, Philippines — The eighth Sustainable Development Goal (SDG), Decent Work and Economic Growth, has become even more critical in the wake of rising economic crises across the globe and the consequences and aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic still being felt in many places.

The United Nations (UN) defines “decent work” as “opportunities for everyone to get work that is productive and delivers a fair income, security in the workplace, social protection for families, better prospects for personal development and social integration.”

Unfortunately, according to UN data, the global employment rate declined to 5.4 percent in 2022, falling significantly from its peak of 6.6 percent in 2020; it was also lower than the prepandemic rate of 5.5 percent in 2019.

READ: Decent work, decent life

Amid inflation, the global real gross domestic product (GDP) per capita also increased at an annual average rate of 1.8 percent from 2015 to 2019, then sharply declined by over 4.1 percent in 2020 due to the pandemic. According to the Sustainable Development Goals Report 2023, growth was estimated to further dwindle to 1.4 percent in 2023, with a slight increase to 1.6 percent in 2024.

Major challenges for PH

In the Philippines, major challenges still remain with regard to SDG 8, and while the country’s overall score in the UN’s Sustainable Development Report 2024 is “moderately improving,” it is still insufficient to attain the set goal.

According to data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as of April 2024, the Philippines’ GDP at current prices stands at $471.52 billion, while real GDP growth stands at an annual percentage change of 6.2 percent.

READ: Bongbong Marcos signs Trabaho Para sa Bayan Act

Meanwhile, the Philippine Statistics Authority said that as of July 2024, the national employment rate stood at 95.3 percent, a slight increase from 95.1 percent in July 2023 as well as a slight decline from 96 percent from April 2024.

The total number of employed persons in July 2024 was estimated at around 47.70 million, a decrease of almost 1 million from April 2024. The labor force participation rate (LFPR) for July 2024 stood at 63.5 percent, a slight decrease from the LFPR of 64.1 percent in April 2024. This translated to a total of 50.07 million Filipinos aged 15 years old and up who were in the labor force.

The unemployment rate, on the other hand, stood at around 4.7 percent, or around 2.38 million Filipinos across the country. Unlike the employment rate, the number of unemployed Filipinos and the overall unemployment percentage increased from the April 2024 estimate of 4.0 percent or 2.04 million Filipinos. While the July 2024 unemployment rate was also slightly lower than the July 2023 estimate of 4.9 percent, the estimated number of unemployed Filipinos increased from 2.29 million.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the country attempted to combat the looming employment and economic crises by adopting the National Employment Recovery Strategy (NERS). Greenlighted in 2021 by former President Rodrigo Duterte, the NERS’ agenda was to create a policy environment to encourage more employment opportunities and improve the employability, wellness, and productivity of workers. The NERS also aimed to provide support to existing and emerging businesses.

The Trabaho Para sa Bayan (TPB) Act was signed into law by Duterte’s successor, President Marcos, in September 2023. The law seeks to create a national masterplan to help address unemployment, underemployment, and youth unemployment, as crafted by the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda)-led TPB Inter-Agency Council.

The plan is also mandated to address the informality of working arrangements, the reintegration of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), and other challenges in the labor market, focusing on improving the overall employability and competitiveness of Filipino workers through upskilling and reskilling initiatives, as well as providing support for various enterprises and industry stakeholders.

The ongoing Philippine Development Plan (PDP) 2023-2028 also emphasizes improving and transforming the economic and social landscape in the country by reinvigorating job creation and reducing poverty. Learning from the pandemic, the PDP breaks down its transformation agenda into digitalization, servicification, a dynamic innovation ecosystem, enhanced connectivity, greater collaboration between local and national governments, and partnership with the private sector.

Aside from seeking to increase Filipinos’ income-earning abilities by increasing employability, expanding employment opportunities, and achieving shared labor market governance, the PDP also aspires to transform production sectors to help generate more competitive products and quality jobs by revitalizing industries, reinvigorating services, and even modernizing agriculture and agribusiness.

France’s 2030 plan

In France, the country that currently holds the fifth ranking out of 166 countries in the Sustainable Development Report 2024, half of the SDG target indicators are on track or maintained, but significant challenges still remain, especially about adjusted GDP growth and youth not in employment, education, or training.

Challenges also remain concerning fatal work-related accidents embodied in imports, where progress is also decreasing.

As the seventh largest economy in the world and the third highest in Europe after the United Kingdom and Germany, France’s current GDP per capita stands at around $47.36 thousand with a 0.9 percent projected real GDP change as of 2024.

In a 2023 report published by Business France, over 1,725 international investment projects created or maintained 58,810 jobs in the country in 2022, while the number of jobs that were created or maintained for that year rose by a historic 31 percent compared to 2021.

In October 2021, President Emmanuel Macron unveiled the France 2030 plan, an investment plan that aims to sustainably transform key sectors of French society and position it as a leader in tomorrow’s economy.

Aside from goals geared mostly toward green involvement and green transformation, France 2030 also pursues the commitments of the previous Investments for the Future Program, the 2010 plan that aimed to stimulate employment, boost productivity, and increase the overall competitiveness of French businesses by encouraging investment and innovation in priority sectors to help drive growth.

Among the current plan’s 10 objectives are to produce at least 20 biopharmaceuticals in France and develop and produce innovative medical devices, develop talent by adapting training for the jobs of the future, and place France at the forefront of cultural and creative content production.

The France Relance plan, which was announced in September 2020, boasted similar goals, aiming to overcome and anticipate economic problems, enable the French economy to return to its pre-crisis levels, and improve local businesses’ competitiveness. It was built around three pillars: ecology, supported the country’s economic recovery and designed to help France meet its environmental and climate commitments; competitiveness, which helps support economic recovery on the supply side by strengthening business competitiveness; and cohesion, which promotes uniform recovery across all regions and generations.

By the end of November 2023, the recovery plan had a 93 percent commitment rate. According to a 2024 report from the France Strategie website, the initial aim of the plan—to return to the pre-crisis GDP by the summer of 2022—was achieved in the fourth quarter of 2021. Analyses from the Observatoire Français des Conjonctures Économiques (OFCE), a French economic policy think tank, also pointed out that the French economy would not have returned to its pre-crisis state until at least the year 2023 without the plan’s help.

Poland’s blueprint

Poland, ranked 10th in the Sustainable Development Report 2024, has achieved three of SDG 8’s target indicators but is still facing challenges in several areas, even seeing declining progress on guaranteeing fundamental labor rights and fatal work-related accidents.

According to data from the World Bank Group, Poland’s GDP for 2023 sits at around $808.6 billion. As of April of this year, the World Bank increased its annual GDP growth forecast for Poland to 3.0 percent in 2024, while its 2025 forecast remains unchanged at 3.4 percent.

In 2022, the Polish Council of Ministers adopted the National Action Plan for Employment (NAPE), which focused mainly on strengthening the local economy in the wake of the pandemic and the conflict in Ukraine. The NAPE also acted as a response to long-term trends in the global economy observed over several years. Its main objective, as suggested by its name, was to stimulate growth in professional activity and employment. Some of its more detailed objectives include the improvement of Poland’s quality of employment and labor productivity, the effective and equitable use of the country’s human resources capital, and the better matching of human resources skills to labor market requirements.

A NAPE for 2023 was also released in June of that year, with most of the plan’s objectives matching the 2022 plans and focused on carrying out various projects that were accomplished and started under 2022’s goals and objectives.

Changes were also made to the Polish labor law at the start of 2024, especially with regard to minimum wage. Starting January 1, the minimum wage was increased to PLN 4,242 gross, an increase from the previously established PLN 3,600 from July 2023. In July 2024, the wage was increased again to PLN 4,300 gross—an overall increase of 23 percent within a year, a record rise for the country.

Accordingly, the minimum hourly rate also increased from PLN 23.50 to PLN 27.70 gross in January 2024, and again to PLN 28.10 in July.

Former Polish family and social policy minister Marlena Malag predicted that over 3.6 million people would benefit from the increase and would be provided an additional PLN 18 billion from the new legislative changes.

Clearly, the Philippines is not alone in terms of the work needed to achieve the targets for SDG 8. The world needs to do much more to achieve equitable economic growth that provides better job opportunities and prospects for life advancement for everyone.

Sources: Inquirer archives, un.org, unstats.un.org, dashboards.sdgindex.org, forbesindia.com, trade.gov, welcometofrance.com, hongkong.consulfrance.org, anr.fr, euronews.com, stip.oecd.org, strategie.gouv.fr, worldbank.org, eures.europa.eu, gov.pl, psz.praca.gov.pl, hlb-poland.global, notesfrompoland.com, imf.org, psa.gov.ph, pna.gov.ph, pdp.neda.gov.ph