As the Philippine business community gradually goes back to prepandemic levels, the job market seems to be on a path to recovery, too.
According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, its latest preliminary findings show, among others, a slight improvement from last year’s unemployment rate and that those who have jobs are working longer hours per week, which translates to additional income.
Recall that, in 2020, when the pandemic was at its peak, some 37 million Filipinos of working age, i.e., between the ages 15 and 64, went unemployed due to massive business closures.
The thousands of Filipinos who graduated from college that year and the year after were forced to either remain idle or accept jobs that did not fit their academic competency and employment expectations.
With the economy in the pits and the end of the pandemic a big question mark, underemployment in terms of reduced working hours, low pay and low-skill jobs was considered a blessing.
That was better than being cooped up in the house and risk getting afflicted with mental health issues of depression and loss of self-esteem. After all, beggars cannot be choosers.
Besides, whatever little pay that job brought helped meet the financial requirements of daily living.
But as the business climate normalizes, it is not going to be business as usual or that the employment landscape would be the same as it was before the pandemic.
The coping mechanisms that many businesses had adopted to meet the challenges caused by that once-in-a-century malady, such as work-from-home (WFH) arrangements, teleconsulting, video conferencing, e-commerce and automation, are expected to influence the framework and direction of today’s work environment.
For one, the WFH system enabled many businesses to maintain their productivity despite limited physical presence in their office premises and, in the process, saved on lease rentals, utility bills and other related business expenses.
These businesses are expected to retain the WFH arrangement and require the presence of their staff in their offices only on certain days of the week or when face-to-face interaction is essential, such as in corporate planning sessions and performance evaluations.
Since WFH is an emergency measure that was resorted to during the pandemic, the businesses that may opt to make it permanent for their operations would have to review their existing rules and regulations to make sure they conform to the standards of the Department of Labor and Employment and their collective bargaining agreements, if any.
The same approach may have to be taken by businesses that, on account of lack of personnel or restricted travel movement during the pandemic, exploited “artificial intelligence” or automation to handle certain kinds of work that used to be performed by their employees.
Layoffs or abolition of work positions may become inevitable.
With the exponential growth of online sales and other forms of e-commerce, where physical contact between sellers and purchasers is practically inexistent, some sections of the retail industry may cease to be as labor-intensive as they used to be.
That means many of the semi-skilled workers those outlets once employed and let go during the pandemic may have to look elsewhere for gainful employment.
Finally, for prospective entrants to the labor force, the postpandemic employment environment would require their learning new skills or proficiencies that should match the changes in the conduct of business under the so-called new normal.
If they fail or refuse to do so, they could find themselves either unemployed or underemployed, which in both cases constitute a gross waste of the time, money and effort they (and their parents) spent for their education. INQ