Despite economic boom, jobs elude many Filipinos

Despite economic boom, jobs elude many Filipinos

MANILA — At his vegetable stand on a busy street in the Philippine capital, Mr Lamberto Tagarro is surrounded by gleaming, modern skyscrapers, between which a river of luxury vehicles flows.

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3 HOURS 14 MIN AGO

MANILA — At his vegetable stand on a busy street in the Philippine capital, Mr Lamberto Tagarro is surrounded by gleaming, modern skyscrapers, between which a river of luxury vehicles flows.

“The Philippines is the rising tiger economy of Asia,” he says. “But only the rich people are going up and up. I’m not feeling it.”Mr Tagarro earns the equivalent of US$5 (S$6.40) a day working before dawn and after dark, battling petty corruption to maintain his improvised sidewalk stand and dealing with rising wholesale prices for the onions and tomatoes he sells.

The Philippines, with a 7.8 per cent expansion in gross domestic product in the first quarter of this year, has the fastest-growing economy in East Asia, surpassing even China’s. The country has a red-hot stock market, strong currency and steady stream of accolades and upgrades from international ratings agencies.

But Mr Tagarro’s experience — of being left behind by the country’s newfound prosperity — mirrors that of many Filipinos, according to the latest government poverty and employment data.

Despite the rapidly expanding economy, the country’s unemployment rate rose to 7.5 per cent in April, from 6.9 per cent in the same period a year earlier. About three million Filipinos who want to work are unemployed.

The Philippines still has a strong service sector, overtaking India in 2011 as the top provider of offshore call centres. But it lacks the manufacturing base that has lifted millions of people out of poverty in other Asian countries.

The country’s latest poverty data, released in April, shows almost no improvement in the last six years. About 10 per cent of Filipinos live in extreme poverty, unable to meet their most basic food needs.

This is the same figure as in 2006 and 2009, the previous years when poverty data was gathered, according to the National Statistical Coordination Board.

The government is trying to address poverty in the country through general economic development as well as direct intervention. Since 2008, with the support of international organisations, Philippines has had a conditional cash-transfer programme that gives money to the poorest people in return for actions such as keeping their children in school.

The programme, which offers assistance to nearly four million families, has received positive reviews from international organisations, but it has also been besieged by allegations of corruption in the distribution of payments. And even though the programme is not showing an effect on national poverty figures, the government continues to support it.

Mrs Julita Cabading, 56, a Manila resident who has a degree in accounting, said she had hoped to benefit from one of the government’s anti-poverty programmes.

She has not been able to find work as an accountant as employers preferred to hire younger people. So she earns about US$3 a day selling newspapers, pens and gum along the pavement in Manila. When she applied for government assistance, she was told that she would need to wait up to two months to get an interview with a government representative.

Mrs Cabading has resorted to borrowing from a local lender and is now stuck in a common poverty trap in the Philippines: She is now working at subsistence wages, without government assistance, to survive and pay off her loans.

“The Philippines is improving. But it hasn’t reached me yet,” she said.