Majority of Filipinos want to be self-employed

A Majority of Filipinos are inclined to start their own business where they can manage their own time and be their own boss, the latest OCTA Research survey released on Thursday showed.

The survey, conducted from March 24 to 28 and which polled 1,200 respondents, showed that 78 percent of Filipinos would choose to go into business and consider mentorship as an important element for small businesses.

Reasons cited by the respondents include wanting to manage their own time/schedule (31 percent), having no boss to report to/get along with (30 percent), no limit in profit/bigger salary (16 percent), daily income/money (12 percent), and ability to work/earn at home or anywhere (11 percent).

OCTA also found that Filipinos appear to be more attuned to entrepreneurship as evidenced by the high awareness rating of the non-profit Go Negosyo, which advocates for micro, small and medium enterprises in the Philippines.

The survey showed a 68 percent awareness rating for Go Negosyo, the highest being in the Visayas at 78 percent.

Go Negosyo's founder, Jose Maria "Joey" Concepcion 3rd, also enjoyed a 60 percent awareness rating among the respondents.

"We welcome OCTA's findings that more Filipinos are considering entrepreneurship. If there is one sector that has been active and striving during the pandemic, it is the micro, small and medium enterprises, and they are the ones poised to lead the Philippines' economic development, especially as we recover from the pandemic," Concepcion said about the OCTA survey.

He noted that "the growing number of Filipinos willing to explore entrepreneurship means that our advocacy at Go Negosyo is getting across to all Filipinos from all the socioeconomic classes and all over the country."

"We have been doing this for almost 18 years now and we will continue to reach out through our online and in-person platforms for entrepreneurs, whether they are aspiring or active entrepreneurs, are into retail or agriculture, are nano-entrepreneurs or small and micro entrepreneurs," he said.

The same survey found that respondents had a high level of awareness of what the Go Negosyo does.

More than half of the respondents (54 percent) see Go Negosyo as a partner of, or supporting, small enterprises, while 42 percent see Go Negosyo as an organization that teaches how to run a business.

Two elements — capital and mentorship — were seen by respondents as the support that small entrepreneurs need from the government, at 82 percent and 67 percent, respectively.

Mentorship was seen as important to small businesses by 95 percent of the respondents, 67 percent of whom consider it very important and 28 percent as somewhat important.

The survey used face-to-face interviews and had a ±3 percent margin of error at a 95 percent confidence level.

Source: Manila Times

Jobless rate down to 4.7% in March 2023

The unemployment rate in the Philippines improved to 4.7 percent in March with 2.42 million Filipinos available and looking for jobs, according to preliminary data at the Philippine Statistics Authority.

In March, the number of jobseekers decreased by 58,000 compared with February and by 461,000 compared with March 2022.

The jobless rate was 4.8 percent last February and 5.8 percent in March last year.

The industries that contributed most to reducing the ranks of the jobless were transportation and storage; accommodation and food service activities; wholesale and retail trade; and construction.

On the other hand, the industries where most jobs were lost include agriculture and forestry; financial and insurance activities; manufacturing; and human health and social work activities.

Source: PSA

Will there be a golden age for Philippine labor?

The role of labor in the factors of production has been historically valued as the most crucial. This is because the generation of goods and services is paramount along with land, capital and entrepreneurship. This is not because of any Marxist paradigm, but this is essentially due to the fact that labor is humanity.

Will labor, therefore, in the Philippines experience a golden age soon?

We are a country which prides itself on having closely-knit families. A nation that is supposed to treat our workers as members of an extended family where everyone is regarded as an important part of a big clan. But we are aware that in most instances, this claim is farthest from the truth. Our workers, especially in the blue-collar category, hardly enjoy the full benefits of the wealth that they help create.

Construction workers of our modern highways and bridges could not afford to acquire and drive their own vehicles. Even the cost of commuting through public utility vehicles devours a big portion of their wages. Those who participate in building condominiums and other mixed developments of lush villages could not aspire to live in any of these units. In fact, many of them are informal settlers who struggle daily and could only hope that their children, perhaps through the leveraged power of education, could someday uplift their plight. Servers in plush restaurants have to deal with daily hunger pangs hidden in the extravagance around them and the need to sneak in the nearby jollijeeps.

This is the paradox amidst our society. And every 1st of May, we celebrate labor. Or, more importantly, we recognize their sacrifices and renew our commitment for an inclusive growth where almost everyone will benefit from a robust economy.

Labor is trapped in a vicious cycle of near poverty. To become laborers basically means that you have to tirelessly endure the idiom of making both ends meet. To many, this is a skill. To some, it’s almost a curse.

According to official reports in 2022, our service sector is the largest at 59.6 percent of our labor force. They are the nurses, teachers, tourism workers, food servers, kitchen crew, drivers, hotel staff, delivery guys and millions more who are oftentimes faceless in the huge world that struggles for survival.

The agricultural sector has 24.1 percent of the more than 50 million Filipinos in the labor force. In our country, working in the farms is almost synonymous to being perpetually unsecured, despite the patriotic role of providing food for almost everyone. Farmers have the lowest income at less than P10,000 monthly. No wonder the poverty-stricken rural areas are the bastion of restlessness and rebellion in our modern history. Their children could hardly finish their education, and their chance of a better future dims by the day because of the continuing decline in agricultural productivity and competitiveness. To worsen their situation, their homes and communities are the most susceptible to the onslaught of natural calamities such as tropical typhoons and floods.

Meanwhile, the 16.3 percent industrial workers have to endure a similar dilemma of being content or not, because they are physically experiencing the trappings and tastes of modern manufacturing in the metropolis, yet they don’t have enough to fully capture the complete benefits that those in the higher ladder of the enterprises enjoy. They are the most vulnerable to problems on childcare, lack of pay and incentives, poor access to good education, fertility issues, discrimination, pension reforms and other legitimate concerns that overwhelm the entire system.

The whole labor sector is regularly challenged also by global recession, high interest rates and, in several cases, the financial crisis in other parts of the globe. Such external challenges aggravate the conditions of labor.

Roadmap for possible collective success for labor. The issues hounding our labor force will not be resolved if the conditions that fundamentally define our economy are basically the same. Meaning, we must ensure the needed structural solutions that will boost our business enterprises, bring in more capital especially from foreign direct investments, create more jobs that will actually pay more also, attract modern technologies and encourage visitors who will see the potential of our country to host a vibrant business environment.

Again, this will mean revisiting the prohibitive provisions of our Constitution and regulations on foreign capital, establishing a permanent ease of doing business in the Philippines office, making the cost of electricity lower and stable, controlling the abuses in many local government units who prey on legitimate businesses, providing a strong sense of security and provide no room for criminality, digitalize and further modernize our processes in government and maintain education as the best bridge of labor in crossing to a much better world.

So, will there be a golden age for Philippine labor? As the economists would answer, it depends. Meaning, this will depend on external dynamics outside of labor itself.

Source: The Philippine Star