Redefining ‘jobless growth’

One of the common knocks against “Aquinomics” is that there is a painfully obvious hollowness to it – yes, the economy is growing at an impressive rate from a certain point of view, but the results of this growth are not being felt, the evidence for which is the persistence of three negative indicators: Unemployment, poverty, and income inequality which have remained at fairly consistent levels and perhaps even increased a bit during the Philippines’ ‘remarkable’ positive economic run.

One of those indicators, however, may be a little more complicated than it appears. In a just-released policy note, Jose Ramon G. Albert, a senior research fellow at the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS), makes a strong case that the Philippines is not really experiencing “jobless growth.”