Unemployment remains high - ECOP

EVEN as it posted the strongest economic growth in Asia at 7.1 percent, unemployment rate in the Philippines remains high owing to abusive behavior of some emplloyers who continue to circumvent the law prohibiting contractualization.

“Some 25 million to 35 million of the [country’s] 42 million workforce remain on contractual status or underemployed because of abusive capitalists who are still into the illegal practice of endo [end of contract] despite the fact that it is prohibited by law,” said Sergio Ortiz-Luis Jr., honorary chairman of the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP), in a weekly news forum at the Aristocrat Restaurant in Malate, Manila.