Job seekers search through available work and fill up forms during a job fair in Manila. The country’s unemployment rate jumped to a three-year high 7.5 percent in April, the statistics office said on Tuesday, despite a 7.8 percent annual GDP growth in the first quarter, the fastest pace in Asia. (MNS photo)
MANILA (Mabuhay) – Neophyte Senator Grace Poe has asked the Senate to conduct a study on youth joblessness in the country, citing the government’s record of 1.4 million unemployed last April.
Poe filed Senate Resolution 771 directing the committees on youth and on labor to do the study “with the objectives of strengthening policies and introducing dynamic measures aimed at generating opportunities for young people and the unemployed.”
The resolution said based on the Philippines Statistical Authority’s (PSA) Labor Force Survey for April 2014, the number of unemployed Filipino youth reached 1.456 million.
“The same PSA study states that jobless youth account for half of the country’s total unemployed and for 16 percent of the total youth workforce,” it said.
“The youth unemployment rate of 15.4 percent is more than twice the reported national unemployment rate of 7 percent.”
“The information pointed out above offsets a relative decrease of 1.1 percent decrease in the youth unemployment rate from April 2013 to Aprile 2014 and points to need for greater vigilance and persistence in addressing the said problem,” it further said.
The resolution then pointed out that under Article II, Section 9 of the 1987 Constitution, the “promotion of full employment is crucial to bringing about a just and dynamic social order that will ensure the prosperity and independence of the nation and free the people from poverty.” (MNS)