Creating More and Better Jobs: We Can Work It Out

With growth accelerating to historic highs, why is the economy still having difficulty in creating more and better jobs?

This is because the country’s long history of policy distortions has slowed the growth of agriculture and manufacturing in the last six decades. Instead of a thriving agricultural sector paving the way for the development of a vibrant labor-intensive manufacturing sector, and, subsequently, a high-skill services sector, the converse has taken place in the Philippines.

The key “brakes” on a successful structural transformation are the following: the lack of competition in key sectors, the inward-looking orientation of the economy, the lack of access to secure property rights for the majority of the population, the purposefully complex and un-transparent maze of government regulations, and severe underinvestment by the public sector in health, education and infrastructure.

Successful implementation of agreements such as the ones outlined above will allow the country to restart agriculture and revive manufacturing, and create more and better jobs for all. We know the reform agenda. The World Bank report on jobs also provides a summary. Many other policy analysts have over the years come up with excellent ideas for specific reforms.

What is needed now is for all of us to build coalitions, large and small, for jobs. Such coalitions can be at the national level between the traditional tripartite members, but expanded to include other stakeholders, such as informal labor and civil society organizations. Such coalitions can also be local, in say, a municipality, bringing key government departments together with the other stakeholders in business, labor (including informal workers), and farming. Let us engage in a practical dialogue and partnership, and agree on an agenda on job creation for all Filipinos.

Source:

http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/speech/2014/02/26/philippines-creating-more-and-better-jobs-we-can-work-it-out