■ Arjay Ivan R. Gorospe
The high rate of unemployment could be countered if hike on wages will be approved, according to independent think tank IBON Foundation.
Wage increase is helpful to the economy, as the transfer of money surges the total demand for final goods and services with high-income households having high consumer spending, IBON stated. To sustain the hike, employers must accept a 12.3 percent cut in their profits instead of deducting the equivalent to the employees’ wages.
The government has previously countered any wage increase, as it could potentially increase the unemployment rate because of companies cutting on their manpower to keep up with the hike, Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said. The past administration also rejected the bill directing an increase of the nurses’ salary to almost P25,000 a month as it will place their wages above their other counterparts such as dentists and optometrists.
Instead of stopping the hike, the Duterte administration should rank the need to increase workers’ wages at the top of its priorities, IBON concluded in the survey it conducted on September. “The benefits for workers and their families is clear and a wage hike will provide immediate relief, even if not yet necessarily bringing all of them up to a decent standard of living,” according to IBON.
In the last five years, the average basic pay of workers only increased by six to seven percent. At present, the minimum wage of P454 for agricultural and manufacturing workers and P491 for the non-agricultural and hospital employees are still less than half of the P1,088 family living wage or the income needed by every family to live comfortably every day, excluding the expenses on education and hospital emergencies.
Although the country’s unemployment decreased to 5.4 percent from 6.1 percent in 2015, progressive groups have consistently been lobbying for wage increase since the 13th Congress of the Arroyo administration to give immediate relief to the workers, according to Labor Undersecretary Joel Maglunsod.
The supposed P125 hike for private sector workers could have served as a preface to a succeeding P750 national daily minimum wage, while the P6,000-hike for government employees can be a step towards a P16,000 monthly minimum wage, said IBON senior researcher Xandra Liza Casambre Bisenio.
“In order for the Philippines to systematize the workers’ sector, firms in the country must comply in providing at least the amount of minimum wage for the employees. Until bigger nations exercise protectionism, neoliberal policies pushed especially by foreign companies will last, and can only be changed by the collective assertion of the people to their rights,” Bisenio added. ■
The post Hike wages to improve economy—IBON appeared first on Philippine Collegian.