MANILA, Philippines -- Hundreds of people in the Philippines are losing their jobs everyday as the global economy slows, Labor Secretary Marianito Roque said Friday.
Between December 1 and January 19, some 15,600 workers were laid off, he told local radio.
Over the same period, 19,000 others had their shifts or working hours reduced.
"Just for today, it was reported to us that 458 people nationwide could lose their jobs," Roque said.
He said most of the job cuts were happening in the electronics sector, which has suffered from plunging global demand.
The sector employs 480,000 people and accounts for nearly 70 percent of Philippine exports.
After US chip maker Intel Corp. announced the closure of a chip testing plant near Manila this week with the loss of 1,800 jobs, Roque warned Thursday that up to 60,000 Filipinos could lose their jobs this year, mainly in the electronics and garments industries.
Roque said he did not keep comparative figures for previous years, but stressed: "This is not normal. This is not business as usual."
Job creation is a chronic problem in the Philippines, where more than 27 million Filipinos -- nearly one in three -- live on a dollar a day or less, according to official figures.
About a third of the labor force is jobless or underemployed, and around eight million of the country's able-bodied citizens have gone abroad for temporary work.
The overseas workers remitted some $15 billion to their families in the 11 months to November 2008, according to the central bank.
Roque stressed that jobs are still being created in the Philippines, citing 600 new hires reported Thursday in the Calabarzon industrial belt south of Manila, where most of the electronics jobs had been lost.
"These are mainly manufacturing jobs that have no connection to the electronics sector," he said.
Meanwhile, about 3,000 Filipinos are still flying out of the Philippines daily for contractual work abroad, he added.
A total of 1.3 million Filipinos found work abroad last year, up 24 percent from calendar year 2007, he said.
