Greetings
It is a great privilege ot be with you in today's awarding ceremonies of The Outstanding Workers of the Republic or TOWER Awards 2000. I personally congratulate the TOWER 2000 Awardees for helping raise the bar of workplace excellence in the country through innovation, superior work performance and right attitude toward work. Likewise, I commend the Rotary Club of Manila for making this prestigious annual search for outstanding Filipino workers a clear expression of civil society's continuing recognition of the vital role our skilled workers play in national development and nation building.
The TOWER Awards will always be special to us in the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE). The man who helped lay the foundations of this Awards came from our ranks. Of course, I am referring to Senator and former Secretary of Labor Blas Ople whose pioneering vision to promote the dignity of labor through an appropriate national recognition program is matched only by his long and dedicated service to our workers and fellowmen. We are indeed proud and privileged to have been given the opportunity to continue fulfilling this vision for our people and our country.
The colorful history of the Awards attests to its continuing and growing relevance in our national life, particularly in this time of profound changes not only in the field of work, but also in the way we generally live. This is the reason why I would like to ascribe a special meaning to this year's awards. What we really need to do is to turn to our main strength as a nation -- our human resources. It is absolutely right for the civil society groups and for the nation as a whole to honor and reward outstanding performers and achievers in whatever capacity they serve. For after all their service will ultimately be for the good of all of us.
It is in this context that there is a need for us to continue providing our awardees and their peers an enabling environment where their innate abilities and talents could be further developed in a systematic and consistent manner. We need to provide our workers enough room to experiment, sufficient freedom to innovate, and decent incentives for them to do extraordinary things in these extraordinary times. We need to let their creativity and ingenuity lead them to worthwhile and productive endeavors, while at the same time inculcating in them a sense of purpose and direction not only for their betterment, but also for the advancement of their organizations and the community as a whole. I am glad to note that the RCM, through the Awards, has remained faithful in doing its complementary share in helping other stakeholders move forward in this direction.
I recall a statement made by Past Director and Chairman Bienvenido Magnaye when he presided over the revival of the Awards in 1996 after a decade of hibernation. He said that the awards program was revived in view of the challenges relating to global competitiveness of our workers in terms of quality and productivity. This is precisely the reason why the objectives of the Awards have been expanded to include the "develop[ment] of a quality and productivity mindset in the labor force." I understand that the revival also represented the RCM's support to the developmental objectives of Philippines 2000, which underscored the importance of developing a globally-competitive workforce.
I mentioned this because the administration of President Joseph Ejercito Estrada has embarked on a nationwide program to address the pressing issue of productivity and quality in light of the globalizing economy. Officially called the Medium-Term National Action Agenda for Productivity or MNAAP, the administration seeks to mobilize both the public and the private sectors to raise the global competitiveness of the country by improving our science and technology sector, by enhancing our human resource and labor-management relations, by raising the efficiency of our products market, by providing needed support infrastructure, and by providing public sector governance. Necessary adjustment measures and interventions are underway to operationalize the objectives of this plan.
I need not dwell on the specifics of this program. What I would like to share with you this afternoon is how the DOLE has responded to the challenge of global competitiveness, and in what specific areas we would like to enlist your support and cooperation. This call for support and cooperation is anchored on our belief that a multi-sectoral strategy is what we need to achieve our common objective to make the country globally-competitive. Given the long tradition of collaboration between the DOLE and the RCM and the business sector which you represent in your individual capacity, I have no doubt that our continued partnership will be able to deliver concrete results for the benefit of the greater majority.
No one can argue against the indispensability of human capital formation and skills acquisition in improving the competitiveness and productivity of any economy. Yet it is also well-known, especially in developing economies like the Philippines, that the magnitude of human resource interventions is matched only by the difficulties in implementing them. As responses to these difficult problems, public policy nevertheless remains focused on interventions aimed at making the human resource base better prepared to withstand shocks and fluctuations in labor and product markets. These interventions have come in the form of active policies on employment, human resource utilization, and education. With respect to training and human resource development, three points may be mentioned.
The first is directed at the informal sector -- including the youth, those in agriculture as well as those working in small or medium-scale enteprises, and vulnerable groups -- which constitutes a sizable portion of the country's labor force.
To maximize the utilization of this human resource base, government has been implementing an active employment policy. This is being done through the provision of micro-credit and investments in employment-generating public works or rural works programs as well as labor-based equipment-supported infrastructure methods. Likewise, the productivity of this sector is continuously being improved through appropriate training and new technologies. Of course, the long-term goal remains the eventual mainstreaming of workers into the formal labor market.
The second is directed at the formal sector, of which a significant proportion is in the low-skilled categories. The International Labor Organization has noted that from 1980 to 1995, the proportion of highly-skilled workers in manufacturing grew only minimally from 23.7% to 26.4%. On the other hand, demand for low-skilled workers in the service sector has been growing steadily.
We are aware that economies which fail to ensure an adequate supply of skilled workers may find themselves content with a low skills equilibrium, negating long-term comparative advantage and economic growth. To prevent this from happening, we have re-oriented our human resource development and employment planning institutions, particularly the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, toward the acquisition of higher levels of skills. We have also started to put in place a more integrated labor market information system linking government, workers and industries with a view of eliminating labor market inefficiencies.
In relation to the formal sector, the management of internal labor markets is a specific concern which requires direct investments from employers and workers themselves. Issues over job enrichment, job enlargement, empowerment, multi-skilling and functional flexibility are to be expected in fast-changing work environments. New technology and new work organizations on the production and distribution side, and demand for innovation and quality on the consumption side, constitute the realities under which these concerns must be addressed.
Further, the workplaces and industries we are seeing today are highly differentiated. Intra-firm or intra-industry labor mobility should always be seen in this context. Thus, insisting on standardized forms of training and HRD interventions can be inefficient. Employers and workers are in the best position to determine their highly-differentiated skills needs. Social dialogue at the plant-level is the best way to address these concerns.
The third is directed at the would-be entrants to the labor force. Since the later part of the eighties, the government has set out to reform its educational system as aprt of the structural adjustment process. It now provides free public education up to the secondary level. The institutions to develop technical skills and manage school-to-work transitions are now in place. All these are part of what is hoped to be an enabling policy and legal environment aimed at developing a human resource base responsive to the needs of industry and the economy as a whole.
I mention these policy thrusts and issues for several reasons.
For one, it is to underscore the many opportunities by which the Rotary Club of Manila and the DOLE can work together to expand the reach and scope of the Awards. This year, particularly, there was an intention to reach out to outstanding performers not only in Metro Manila but also in all our regions. While we tried to help as much as we can, I think we need to have more time by way of awareness-raising and promotional activities in order for our potential partners in the provinces to appreciate the significance of the program. On the part of the DOLE, promotion can be integrated into some of its advocacy programs. If we want to start in this direction, the time to do is now. Not only are there opportunities for geographical expansion. Given the trends in the sectoral distribution of our workers, the Rotary Club may wish to consider expanding beyond the blue-collar workers.
On the other hand, the DOLE is considering how it can take off from the screening process preparatory to the Awards in devising incentive schemes for outstanding performers. The DOLE would like to do its share in ensuring that recognition through the Awards is not a one time occurrence, but rather as the beginning of new opportunities for the recognized performers. I would like to see us working on an "honor roll" of workers comprised of those who have won or have been nominated for the Awards. Thereafter we can work on maintaining and expanding this roll, providing needed incentives by way of further training and skills upgrading as the case may be, with the ultimate objective of eventually developing a core group of workers who can directly help in attaining our development goals.
Aside from these possibilities, may I touch on one of today's hot issues, which is the employment situation as reflected in the results of the recent second quarter Labor Force Survey of the National Statistics Office.
First of all, the second quarter results always has the highest unemployment rate among all quarter survey results. This is the time of the year when fresh graduates from college join the labor market and start to look for jobs. Also, since it is vacation time, some students take advantage of the school break and join the labor force to search for part-time employment and earn some money to save for the coming school year.
The survey indicates that the unemployment rate of 13.9% during the first quarter is the highest since 1991 when it reached 14.4%. To appreciate the statistics fully, let us look at the details. There was a 1.19 million drop in the level of employment compared to the same period last year. This is mainly accounted for by the decline in employment in the agriculture sector of 12.7 percent. It appears that due to climatic conditions, there was a shift in planting and harvesting time from April to May. When the survey was taken, farmers were actually waiting for harvesting time. Also, while the industry sector also registered a decline in its employment, the decline is much less compared to the same period of the previous year. In fact, the share of the idustry sector increased to 16.2% from 15.7% last year.
The decline in employment is mainly in the number of unpaid family workers and own-account workers. In fact, the number of wage and salary workers and full-time workers increased by 104,000, accounting for 50.6% of the total share of the employed during the period. Likewise, the share of full-time workers or those who worked for 40 hours and over, increased to 64.5 percent. All these figures mean that while there was a significant drop in overall employment levels, there was a marked improvement in the quality of employment.
President Estrada's administration is working double time to improve the employment situation. In yesterday's meeting of the Economic Coordinating Council, the body agreed to prioritize the implementation of the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Program. Likewise, policy interventions to make the Philippines a good investment site especially for electronics and IT software development have been discussed. Further, marketing missions abroad to share in employment opportunities offered by sectors in higher skills categories like IT, health care and international seafaring, and in more labor-friendly destinations like Europe, US and Canada have also been dispatched. All these efforts are consistent with the Comprehensive Employment Plan 1999-2004, the blueprint of policies and programs toward job expansion and wider access to job opportunities.
Let me conclude by again congratulating this year's TOWER awardees. Because excellence in the workplace needs heroes, champions and torchbearers, I am confident that you will not sit on your laurels, and that you will continue to achieve great things not only for the benefit of your company, but also to inspire community and society of the dignity and honor of work. Beyond this, I also ask the private sector, particularly the members of the Rotary Club, to continue supporting the thrusts of the Estrada administration in order that we can achieve togehter our common aspirations for our nation and for our future.
Mabuhay ang Rotary Club of Manila!
Mabuhay ang TOWER 2000 Awardees!
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