Senator Imee Marcos calls on the government to design a national policy for job recovery once the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) vaccines starts rolling out.

Chair of the Senate committee on economic affairs, she expressed that while she sees the nearing distribution of COVID-19 vaccines as the “best Christmas gift ever”, she is still concerned about the state of the jobs and economy of the country.

“We have already been warned that the health crisis would end long before economies will recover. Who then is researching and formulating the job recovery vaccine? Millions of Filipinos, now unemployed and bankrupt through no fault of their own, desperately need that jab in the economy’s arm – but no one seems to be in charge,” Marcos appealed.

Last week, Labor Force Survey (LFS) of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported a 17.3% to an 8.7% drop in the unemployment rate.

Despite this, the chairperson said that the government keeps on pursuing “stuck with short-term, band-aid solutions” to unemployment, such as Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) job fairs and the TUPAD, CAMP, and cash-for-work programs.

“These hardly make a national policy to kick-start job creation,” she said.

Marcos also mentioned that the 21,000 local and overseas jobs that the DOLE has opened can only assist less than 1% of the 3.8 million Filipinos.

Additionally, she pointed out that the reduction in underemployment rate still “does not represent the norm” because it stood at 4.6% in October 2019.

“Likewise, in good times and bad times, underemployment in the Philippines remains double digit at 14.4% for Q3, compared to 12.8% for the same period in 2019,” Marcos said.

Furthermore, she urged the government to step up in their efforts to address this, “A before-Covid or BC attitude won’t solve the country’s high unemployment. The government needs to level up from its BC work programs.”