NEDA: Quality of employment yet to reach pre-pandemic level, remains a concern

The quality of employment in the country remains a concern for the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) as it is yet to reach pre-pandemic level despite the lifting of the state of public health emergency due to COVID-19.

NEDA Secretary Arsenio Balisacan voiced the concern during the first day of the briefing on the proposed P5.768-trillion budget for 2024 in the House of Representatives.

Balisacan said while there were 663,000 fewer unemployed individuals as of June this year, the percentage of underemployed just slightly went down to 12% from 12.6% same period last year.

The underemployed are those who look for additional job or work hours, or a new job with longer working hours.

“Quality of employment remains a key concern. The share of wage and salary workers in total employment at 61.9% as of the first semester of 2023 is yet to recover to pre-pandemic figure,” Balisacan said.

“This is mainly due to the decline of the proportion of workers in private establishment and expansion of those employment which are considered  vulnerable such as unpaid family workers and self-employed work,” he added.

The 61.9% share of the wage and salary workers in total employment for the first semester of 2023, Balisacan said, is lower than the 64.2% recorded same period last year.

The pre-pandemic share of the wage and salary workers in total employment reached 64.6% in 2019, the year before the COVID-19 pandemic grounded the world.

“Employment expanded in services and agriculture [sectors]. However, these gains were moderated by employment losses in the industry,” Balisacan said.

And while the share of middle-skilled workers in total employment has increased to 56.7% in first semester of 2023 from 52.1% in 2019, the NEDA chief said the share of high skilled workers has declined from 21.2% in 2019 to just 14.4% in the first quarter of 2023.

As this developed, Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno called for Congress’ support in passing the tax measures aimed at generating at least P125 billion worth of government revenues for 2024.

The measures include:

• excise tax on single-use plastics
• rationalization of mining fiscal regime
• motor vehicle road users tax
• excise tax on sweetened beverage and junk food
• tax on pre-mixed alcohol
• value added tax on digital service providers
• carbon taxation
• capital market development bill, and
• military and uniformed personnel pension reform bill

“We will continue to work with Congress in pushing for key reforms crucial to accelerating economic development,” Diokno said.

"These measures are  crucial  components of  the medium-term fiscal framework. These tax revenue measures will enable us to raise revenues totalling P120.5 billion or 0.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2024 and P183.2 billion or 0.6% of GDP in 2026," he said.—AOL, GMA Integrated News