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An International Labor Organization (ILO) report
released last September placed Philippine labor productivity—the
output per person employed—at the low end of the Southeast Asian
countries.
The report, “Key Indicators of
the Labor Market,” said that in US dollar terms labor productivity
in the country stands at US$7,271 per person employed, lower than
neighboring market economies such as Singapore, US$47,975; Malaysia,
US$22,112; Thailand, US$13,915 and Indonesia, US$9,022.
But the country’s labor
productivity is higher than state-led economies, such as Vietnam,
US$4,809; Myanmar, US$4,541 and Cambodia, US$2,853.
It’s still the United States
that leads the world in labor productivity.
Labor productivity in Southeast
Asia and the Pacific, the ILO said, “was stagnant and much
slower than other regions” with an average annual increase of only
1.6 percent between 1996 and 2006. “Workers in the region produced
only a seventh of their developed economy counterparts,” the ILO
said.
East Asia’s workers, by
comparison, produce twice as much as they did 10 years ago. Theirs
is the world’s highest productivity increase.
A 2006 survey of the Asian
Development Bank found the Philippines to be number 11 in labor
productivity among 13 selected Asian countries. We were just a few
dollars higher than Cambodia and Vietnam.
The Philippines has a lot of
catching up to do, and the stark figures bear this out. But we must
not assign the blame to others—the statisticians, the IMF-World
Bank for its structural adjustment loans, the government for being
corrupt and insensitive to the workers or the workers themselves for
being powerless or unwilling to improve themselves more rigorously
than other peoples of the region.
Low wages—which means
underpayment of labor—has always been a characteristic of
underdevelopment. Worse than unemployment, underpayment
further is a sign of exploitation. No wonder Filipino college
graduates and professionals go abroad if they can to earn higher
wages.
Many Filipinos are only able to
keep their families fed, clothed and the children schooled by
working away from their families. They keep the Republic
afloat and suffer from diminished purchasing power with the high
peso to dollar rate.
The unabated exodus of Filipino
talents and skills and the social costs of the OFW phenomenon are
top concerns of the Department of Labor and Employment. It has
adopted strategies to raise the productivity of Filipino labor.
Through the National Wages and
Productivity Commission, it conducts labor education programs,
specifically focused on productivity.
The 2008 Productivity Olympics is
one such project. It was launched Thursday, February 21.
It is a national competition among micro, small and medium
enterprises (MSMEs) to find the best in two categories: people
development and business excellence. Enterprises that have
been in operation for at least three years by October 1 last year
may join.
The project promotes worker
awareness of the importance of consciously improving in productivity
while promoting employer awareness of how to satisfy their workers
with goodies in addition to better wages. It pushes the
enterprises—their owners and managers and their workers—to
strive to become more competitive.
Labor Secretary Arturo Brion says
that the Productivity Olympics has helped in capacity building among
the micro, small and medium enterprises in the industrial, services
and agricultural sectors.
The companies that participate in
the Olympics benefit by becoming more and more profitable. The
workers benefit by getting better pay and, with their skills
enhanced, finding better work opportunities abroad and get really
much higher income.
The administration’s economic
managers keep bragging of having sustained GDP growth all these
seven years that Mrs. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has been president.
2007 was the best year of the economy in 31 years. They must now,
these being days of loud and growing expressions of disgust over the
alleged corruption of high officials, pay more attention to the
plight of the workers.
A happy population of workers can
ensure peace and stability, which in turn will ensure that President
Arroyo finishes her term in glory instead of opprobrium.
Helping the Filipino workers
raise their labor productivity not only increases their worth in
money. They also see themselves rise in dignity.
That makes them more disposed to
growing also in civility and culture, making the Filipinos the
bright and happy race God wants them to be.
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