MANILA, Philippines -- A little more than half, or 55.53 percent, of the 8,555 establishments inspected nationwide have complied with labor standards the Department of Labor and Employment said Thursday.

The Bureau of Working Conditions (BWC) in its report to Labor Secretary Marianito Roque said labor inspectors who surveyed establishments around the country from January to May this year found 4,751 units were "generally compliant" with basic labor standards such as minimum wage and remittance of social welfare benefits.

Using DoLE's Labor Standards Enforcement Framework (LSEF), the bureau found 44.5 percent or 3,804 units violated labor standards such as failure to remit contributions to the Social Security System, Philippine Health Insurance Inc., and Pag-IBIG.

The BWC said violations and deficiencies by 610 establishments were corrected on-site. The bureau said the corrections resulted in restitutions amounting to P8,834,426.80 which benefitted 10,421 workers.

The bureau said it handled a total of 3,581 cases of labor standards violations. Of this, 1,444 were disposed, resulting in awards or settlements amounting to P37,432,358.01, benefiting 18,059 workers.

The labor chief said all this was achieved with a "lean and mean" nationwide corps of 142 labor inspectors.

For 2008, the inspection team aims to cover 30,059 establishments in the country's 16 regions.