A new report from the International Labor Organization (ILO) shows the impact on Filipino workers in wholesale/retail and tourism sectors.
The World Employment and Social Outlook Trends 2022 showed the share in employment of wholesale and retail in the fourth quarter of 2019 was nearly 20 percent.
The share in job losses from the second quarter of 2019 to the same period in 2020 was about 25 percent.
Employment in the wholesale and retail trade sector rose in the third quarter of 2020 then dipped in the last quarter.
Employment in the food and accommodation, used as proxy for tourism, dipped to nearly 70 percent in the fourth quarter of 2020.
The Philippines and other economies in Asia has had the largest decline in manufacturing employment as a proportion of total employment as a consequence of the pandemic, the report said.
Other heavily hit sectors, affected by mobility restrictions and the decline in international tourism, are accommodation and food services, and wholesale and retail trade.
Across Asia and the Pacific as a whole, the report said, total working time in 2020 fell by the equivalent of over 130 million full-time equivalent jobs.
Net employment losses amounted to approximately 58 million in 2020; 39 million of the workers in question exited the labor force.
The report added the pandemic is estimated to have driven over two million workers to fall below the extreme poverty line in Asia and the Pacific in 2020, and another 1.6 million to fall below the moderate poverty line.
Among the groups most vulnerable to the pandemic in this region are informal workers, who account for high shares of employment in some of the heavily hit sectors, and migrant
workers.
The wholesale and retail trade sector accounted for the largest share of net job creation during this period: 20 percent in the Asia and Pacific region and 25 percent in Southeast Asia.
Accommodation and food service activities, used as a proxy for the tourism sector, also made a significant contribution to employment growth in the region with 10 percent of jobs created between 2010 and 2019.
These two sectors together employed over 350 million workers in Asia and the Pacific in 2019.
