The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said that 14.7 or 30% of the 49 million Filipinos that are employed are earning low wages due to the lack the skills that are required of them.

PSA said that among these includes those who actually do the simple and routine jobs.

They are part of the cleaning, maintenance, helping in the kitchen, planting, fishing, and many others.

The World Bank had declared that such person engaged in such occupation are considered as the most vulnerable to suffer when the prices of goods increase, the World Bank (WB) said.

“You have a large number of people. It’s 29.9, let’s say it’s 30 percent of workers who are in the low-skill, low-productivity, low-wage occupations. Some of them are not technically poor, but they are vulnerable to shocks. They can fall into poverty anytime. When there is high increase in the prices of food, they can fall into poverty,” according to WB country director Ndiame Diop.

For his part, Labor Secretary Bienvenido Laguesma agreed as he noted that the government is working to attract investors to create higher-quality jobs.

“Ang challenge pa rin sa atin ay quality of jobs. It means we have to be able to really provide more secure and more quality and decent jobs to our workers,” he said.

He added that the low-wage Filipinos must undergo training under the Technical Education And Skills Development Authority (TESDA), since the more skills an employee possesses, the higher the income he can get.

Catherine R. Cueto