The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) will make sure that the rights of the more than 2,000 employees of Philippine Airlines (PAL) to be retrenched will not be violated.

In a statement on Thursday, the DOLE said its Metro Manila office will be the one to assist the affected workers.

“DOLE to handle the situation-1. To ensure the payment of separation pay; 2. To provide employment facilitation services; and 3. To offer livelihood assistance to interested employees,” it said.

It added that the company has to notify affected workers a month before the scheduled termination.

“PAL needs to notify DOLE and the employees 30 days prior to the effectivity of the termination,” it said.

DOLE and PAL officials had a meeting on Wednesday afternoon. No further details of the meeting were disclosed.

On Tuesday, PAL, Asia’s oldest commercial carrier, announced that it will be decreasing 30 percent of its workforce due to the effects of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic.

Some 2,300 employees are either terminated or offered voluntary separation packages.

The employment of the affected employees will only be until the middle of March this year.

PAL is Asia’s oldest airline and was once owned by the government. It is now owned by Lucio Tan with Japan’s ANA Holdings as minority shareholder.

PAL Holdings Inc., the operator of PAL, said it recorded losses reaching P29.03 billion as of September last year, which is a 370-percent increase from the P7.86 billion losses recorded a year earlier.

The debt stock of PAL Holdings, based on data from wsj.com, is P18.53 billion in short-term debts while the current portion of its long-term debt stood at P29.71 billion at the end of 2019.