2015年-世界发展银行全球_Employment_and_Poverty_in_the_Philippines_10页_1mb

Summary of the Philippine Social Protection Note: Employment and Poverty in the Philippines

Core Content

This document analyzes the relationship between employment and poverty in the Philippines, focusing on labor market performance and its implications for poverty reduction and shared prosperity. It emphasizes that in-work poverty is a significant challenge, driven by low earning capacity and limited access to productive, formal jobs. The study highlights the structural segmentation of the labor market into "good" and "bad" jobs, with the latter being more prevalent among the poor and contributing to persistent poverty.

Main Concepts

• Bad Jobs: Informal, low-paid, temporary, or casual jobs that are not covered by labor regulations. These are associated with higher poverty risk.
• Good Jobs: Formal jobs that pay above the low-pay threshold or are high-skilled, unless they are involuntarily part-time or temporary.
• Earning Capacity: Proxied by household labor income per earner.
• Informal Employment: Jobs not meeting criteria for formal employment (no contract, no social insurance, no dismissal protection).
• Low-Paid Jobs: Jobs paying less than two-thirds of the median wage; very low-paid jobs pay less than 50% of the median wage.
• Underemployment: Workers who would like to work more hours. Includes both visibly (less than full-time) and invisibly underemployed.
• Poverty: Focused on the bottom 20% of the income distribution, not the official poverty line.

Key Findings

1. Nature of Jobs and Employment

• Employment is widespread, but quality remains poor.
• Economic growth has not improved job quality, with new jobs largely being "bad" jobs.
• Informality is high, with 75% of all jobs and 67% of urban jobs being informal.
• Young workers are more likely to be employed in better sectors (services, industry) and have higher educational attainment than older workers.
• Unskilled laborers dominate the job market, with one in three workers being unskilled.
• Educated workers are often forced into unskilled jobs due to the scarcity of "good" jobs.

2. Labor Market Segmentation and Inequality

• Wage inequality is high, with the top decile earning 7 times more than the bottom decile.
• Informal workers are more likely to be low-paid and have lower educational attainment.
• Women face a higher incidence of low-paid employment (37%) than men (25%).
• Urban workers earn 50% more than rural workers, and formal workers earn more than twice as much as informal workers.

3. Poverty and Employment

• In-work poverty is pervasive, as many employed individuals still live in poverty.
• Employment does not guarantee a pathway out of poverty, due to the nature of jobs.
• Underemployment is a bigger problem than unemployment in terms of poverty risk.
• Two-thirds of working-age poor are employed, but in low-productivity jobs.
• Poverty is not caused by unemployment, but by poor job quality and low earnings.

4. Labor Market Policies and Reforms

• Improving education and skills is crucial for reducing in-work poverty.
• Creating better jobs is necessary to increase earning capacity and reduce poverty.
• Structural transformation must be supported by flexible labor policies.
• Targeted training programs can help improve skills among the poor, especially youth.
• Labor regulations need to be simplified to enable labor reallocation from informal to formal sectors.

Challenges and Recommendations

• Demographic pressure from a large youth cohort contributes to wage stagnation.
• Low educational attainment among youth, especially from poor backgrounds, limits access to better jobs.
• Labor resource utilization is suboptimal, with high underemployment and outmigration.
• Poverty reduction hinges on improving earning capacity through better education and access to productive jobs.
• Policy recommendations include:
  • Enhancing access to quality education for the youth.
  • Encouraging growth in the formal and high-value sectors.
  • Reforming labor policies to be more flexible and supportive of labor mobility.
  • Implementing cost-effective training programs for low-skilled workers.

Conclusion

The Philippines faces significant challenges in reducing in-work poverty due to the prevalence of low-quality, informal jobs and limited access to productive employment. While economic growth has created jobs, it has not improved their quality or wages. Addressing these issues requires a multi-faceted approach, including education reforms, structural economic changes, and labor policy adjustments to support better job creation and worker welfare.