MANILA (Xinhua) -- Unemployment rate in the Philippines is expected to remain high in the next few months as the global economic crisis crimps business activities, analysts said.
The Philippines has one of the highest unemployment level in Southeast Asia, standing at 6.8 percent as of October 2008, according to the country's National Statistics Office.
The global economic turmoil has dampened demand in Japan, the United States and Western Europe -- large markets for Philippine export goods, services and migrant workers. As these markets contracted, so did the demand for Philippine labor.
"Workers will always be the victims in a recession," said Father Edwin Corros, executive secretary of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines' Episcopal Commission on Migrants and Itinerants.
"When there's no demand for your products, how can you continue to hire people to make your products?" said Rene Cristobal, vice president of the Employers Confederation of the Philippines, Inc. (ECOP). Cristobal said several of ECOP's member-companies have to lay off workers as they either close shops or reduce their output.
Analysts said the most vulnerable workers are those in the export-oriented industries such as electronics and textile manufacturing. "The recession in our trading partners has hit our exports sector hard," said Philippine Socio-Economic Planning Secretary Ralph Recto. Philippine economic planners expect export receipts to fall this year and this doesn't bode well for workers, especially for those employed in labor-intensive manufacturing companies.
Indeed, several companies reported either laying off workers or cutting working hours as the crisis reduced demand for Philippine exports.
In Luzon, northern Philippines, Intel Corp., the first US semiconductor firm that established a facility in the Philippines, shut down its factory and retrenched 1,800 workers. In Cebu, southern Philippines, furniture maker and exporter Giardini del Sole Inc. has temporarily shut down and laid off about 250 workers as a result of the financial crisis.
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Based on my observation unemployment is an economic problem in two ways. The first is that when the economy is not doing well businesses tend to layoff workers. This causes more people to be on unemployment. When people are on unemployment their spending habits change and they tend to pay only necessary bills and not spend money on things that are not absolutely necessary. Some causes of unemployment is simple: you have lost or are unable to find a job, Voluntary unemployment is unemployment caused by the worker choosing to be unemployed, such as willing quitting a job, no matter what the reason. Involuntary unemployment, on the other hand, is caused by the worker being unwilling laid off (fired).
Please don't just describe the issue. Try also to relate it to your self.
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