Research group IBON said that 14.4 million non-regular workers and informal earners, or three-out-of five employed persons in Luzon, are most at risk of lost wages and earnings due to the Luzon-wide lockdown. The group said that the government should take necessary measures to contain the spread of COVID-19, but these should be particularly sensitive to the plight of low income workers and their families. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Duterte administration recently declared an enhanced\ncommunity quarantine or lockdown of Luzon island. These guidelines include only\nallowing the operation of private establishments providing basic necessities\nand production related to food and medicines. Exceptions though are business\nprocess outsource (BPO) firms and export-oriented industries. All operating\nestablishments are also required to adopt a strict skeletal workforce. Mass\npublic transport, class and school activities, and work in the Executive branch\nhas been suspended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
IBON said however that these strict home-quarantine policies\nare affecting the livelihoods of millions of low income Filipinos, particularly\nthose without regular work. The group said that many low income Filipinos in\npoor-quality jobs or precarious work \u2013 or work that is insecure, low-paying, and\nlack benefits \u2013 face lost wages and earnings during the lockdown. They are made\neven more vulnerable due to the lack of much-needed benefits such as medical\nand social security during the COVID-19 pandemic. Poor quality work includes,\nfor instance, temporary or contractual workers, salespersons, street vendors\nand drivers of suspended public transport vehicles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
IBON estimates, based on latest available 2018 data, show that\nsome three-out-of-five (61.6%) of total employed persons in Luzon are in this\nkind of poor quality work. This covers 14.4 million or a majority of the\nemployed in Luzon consisting of: non-regular in private establishments and\ngovernment (6 million), and informals (8.5 million) consisting of private\nhousehold workers, worked with pay in own family-operated farm or business, own\naccount workers, and unpaid family workers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, IBON estimated some three-out-of-five (60.5%) of total\nemployed persons in the National Capital Region (NCR) in poor quality work.\nThey account for one-out-of-five (21.7%) of the total precarious work in the\nentire island of Luzon. Majority of employed persons in the NCR, or 3.1 million\nare in poor quality work consisting of non-regular in private establishments\nand government (1.5 million), and informals (1.7 million).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are already reports of workers faced with reduced work\nhours or forced leave due to limited operations of business establishments,\nsaid the group. Others, like small-business owners and their employees have had\nsignificant loss of earnings due to the drop in customer traffic. Workers have\nalso had difficulties traveling to and from work due to the suspension of mass\npublic transport and checkpoints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
IBON noted that of the Php27.1 billion spending plan for\nCOVID-19 rolled out by the government, only Php2 billion has been allotted as\nwage subsidy or financial support for displaced workers and Php1.2 billion for\nsocial security unemployment benefits. Non-regular workers may not be able to\navail of this cash assistance because of their irregular or informal status.\nMeanwhile, other assistance provided through the spending plan is in the form\nof skills training or loans that will not provide immediate relief or that will\nput job and income insecure Filipinos into debt.\n\n\n\nIBON said that while addressing this serious\npublic health emergency, government should also ensure that non-regular workers\nand their families are not driven into further poverty and hardship. Among the\nsteps the Duterte administration can take is to declare a freeze on workers\u2019\nemployment status as well as ensure that they continue to receive full pay.\nGovernment should also provide decent and adequate direct cash assistance to\ninformal sector earners.\n\n\n\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NEWS<\/p>\n
Potentially 14.4 million non-regular workers and informal earners, or three-out-of five employed persons in Luzon, are most at risk of lost wages and earnings due to the Luzon-wide lockdown. Government should take necessary measures to contain the spread of COVID-19, but these should be particularly sensitive to the plight of low income workers and their families.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9217,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_expiration-date-status":"saved","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"categories":[2048,14],"tags":[2199,2202,279,2206],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9213"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9213"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9223,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9213\/revisions\/9223"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}