{"id":265528,"date":"2020-08-17T05:14:49","date_gmt":"2020-08-17T09:14:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=265528"},"modified":"2020-08-17T05:16:41","modified_gmt":"2020-08-17T09:16:41","slug":"palace-saddened-by-record-high-adult-joblessness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/08\/17\/palace-saddened-by-record-high-adult-joblessness\/","title":{"rendered":"Palace saddened by record-high adult joblessness"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said the SWS\u2019s July 3-6 National Mobile Phone Survey which found adult joblessness hitting a record high 45.5 percent was expected due to restrictions imposed to contain the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic. (Pixabay photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Malaca\u00f1ang on Monday was \u201csaddened\u201d by a Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey result which showed that nearly half of the country’s adult labor force was jobless in July 2020.<\/p>\n

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said the SWS\u2019s July 3-6 National Mobile Phone Survey which found adult joblessness hitting a record high 45.5 percent was expected due to restrictions imposed to contain the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are of course saddened but that\u2019s to be expected with the lockdowns that we\u2019ve had because of Covid-19,\u201d Roque said in a virtual Palace briefing.<\/p>\n

Despite the figure that eclipsed the previous record high of 34.4 percent logged in March 2012, Roque said he was still pleased that the joblessness rate turned out better than expected considering the country has been on a lockdown since March 2020, the longest lockdown in the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cAko po\u2019y nagagalak na hindi tayo<\/em>\u00a0100 percent\u00a0nawalan ng trabaho kasi sa tagal po na naka<\/em>-lockdown\u00a0tayo. Talagang<\/em>\u00a0I\u2019m still surprised at our resilience at 45 percent\u00a0pa lang po nawawalan ng trabaho<\/em>\u00a0(I\u2019m still happy that we didn\u2019t reach 100 percent joblessness because we\u2019ve had long lockdowns. I\u2019m still surprised at our resilience that our joblessness is only at 45 percent). It could have been worse,\u201d Roque said.<\/p>\n

According to Roque, the national government is finding ways to address the needs of Filipinos severely affected by the impact of Covid-related lockdowns by slowly reopening the economy.<\/p>\n

He said that with government funds quickly depleting, the only solution is to allow citizens to resume their livelihood with minimum health and safety standards in place.<\/p>\n

\u201cI personally belong to the school of thought that we can live with Covid, we need to learn how to live our lives with Covid,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He also noted that financial assistance is available for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).<\/p>\n

\u201cI think government is looking at opening the economy and providing financial assistance to small and medium scale enterprises and also assistance to strategic businesses even if it is not small and medium scale,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Metro Manila, Cavite, Laguna, Rizal and Bulacan will be under modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) status until Tuesday (August 18) to allow a recalibration of the country\u2019s healthcare capacity.<\/p>\n

President Rodrigo Duterte is expected to announce new quarantine classifications for Metro Manila and nearby provinces after meeting with members of his Cabinet on Monday night.<\/p>\n

Last week, Duterte admitted that he is having difficulty balancing health and economy after reverting Metro Manila and nearby provinces to MECQ status.<\/p>\n

He wanted to heed the request of medical front-liners to extend the MECQ until the end of the month to slowdown the spread of the coronavirus disease, but was unsure of where the government would get funds for its social amelioration program.<\/p>\n

The July 2020 SWS Survey showed that the estimated number of jobless adults was at 27.3 million in July 2020 and 7.9 million in December 2019.<\/p>\n

Adults who are jobless consists of those who voluntarily left their old jobs, are seeking jobs for the first time, or lost their jobs due to economic circumstances beyond their control.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0\u2013 Malaca\u00f1ang on Monday was \u201csaddened\u201d by a Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey result which showed that nearly half of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":260884,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-265528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265528"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":265530,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265528\/revisions\/265530"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}