Local layoffs worry RP more

Local layoffs worry RP more
22M women globally face retrenchments–ILO

Local job losses are outpacing the number of laid-off overseas Filipino workers (OFWs)—and causing greater worry for the government—the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) said Friday.
“The problem is more on domestic compared to OFWs,” Dennis Arroyo, director of the NEDA’s national planning and policy staff told reporters.
Arroyo said that from October 2008 when the crisis started to March 4, some 42,000 domestic workers were laid off compared to 5,700 OFWs. “About 1,000 OFWs return every month. The return rate is the same level as in 2007.”
But Arroyo said that the total displacements were offset by an increase in the number of deployed OFWs. “Despite the global crisis, an average of 3,000 OFWs still leave the country every day.”

The annual report, titled “Global Employment Trends for Women,” stated that the job crisis would sharpen as the recession deepens this year, making it harder for women to land “decent work.”
Of the three billion people employed globally in 2008, 1.2 billion, or 40.4 percent were women, the report said. It added that as 2009 enters its second quarter, the projected global unemployment rate for women could reach 7.4 percent, higher relative to projected unemployed men of 7 percent.
According to the report, the gender impact of the global financial crisis would reflect more on women from most regions of the world, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean. The only regions where the crisis might have lesser effect on women are East Asia, the developed economies and southeastern Europe, which even before the crisis hit had narrower gender gaps in terms of job opportunities.
Total employment falls

The ILO reported that the global vulnerable employment rate in 2009 would also increase to a range of 50.5 percent to 54.7 percent for women, and from 47.2 percent to 51.8 percent for men. Although the vulnerability rate is higher for women, the crisis is affecting more men in the vulnerability level as it reflected a higher increase in percentage from the 2007 figure, the ILO reported.