Lies only require constant repetition to become the truth.

The February 2024 Labor Force Survey results from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) claim that there were 679,000 fewer unemployed and 210,000 fewer underemployed Filipinos compared to February 2023. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s administration has since used the survey results as supposed evidence of improvements enjoyed by the Filipino workforce under his leadership.

But the survey glosses over the grim reality for most workers in the country: stagnated wages amid rising prices, lack of job security, and exploitative working conditions perpetuated through longstanding policies that serve foreign and elite interests.

Its misleading inclusion of informal work in calculating employment rates is a notable flaw, using an extremely loose definition of gainful employment. In fact, almost half or 20.4 million of the reported employed population are considered informal workers, according to IBON Foundation. Most of them are self-employed, such as vendors and freelancers in a highly unregulated gig economy. 

The PSA claims that the survey hopes to provide “a clear knowledge and understanding” of the Filipino labor force in aid of “national and local development planning,” yet wage trends were not taken into account, despite numerous studies linking wage and benefits with workforce productivity and motivation.

Recent wage data would have revealed how paltry incremental wage increases consistently failed to keep up with skyrocketing inflation rates. The average nationwide minimum wage remains pegged at P440, far from the P1,207 current family living wage computed by the IBON Foundation. 

The survey also revealed that the service sector—notorious for contract-based hiring—still currently employs the most people. Meanwhile, the construction subsector, similarly offering mostly contract-based work, had the highest increase in employed workers. 

Ignoring the lack of job security among Filipino workers is hardly surprising, as the government itself presently has 832,800 contractual employees. Without security of tenure, workers are treated as dispensable tools deprived of the value they generate and of growth opportunities that a sustainable productive workforce requires.   

The Marcos administration asserts that the nominal decrease in unemployment and underemployment rates is due to “robust growth across all major industry groups.” Such a statement is an outright lie that ignores the dismal state of our local industries—or lack thereof.

Last year, the foreign direct investment-dominated manufacturing sector had the smallest share in our economy since 1949. Recent trends also show the diminishing economic contribution of the backward, extractive agriculture industry. This lack of basic industries facilitated reliance on the service sector, including business processing outsourcing companies that currently dominate the job market. 

Moreover, the country’s longstanding labor export policy further evidences the woes of Filipino workers, as it is the product of the Philippine government’s long-term failure to provide sufficient, meaningful jobs for its workforce. In 2023, 2.5 million overseas employment certificates were issued to overseas Filipino workers, which the Department of Migrant Workers boasted as a return to pre-pandemic figures. 

Indeed, the truth is that the Filipino labor force is in a far more precarious position than the Labor Force Survey proclaims, with most available employment involving contractual work with diminutive wages, generated by short-term infrastructure development, foreign investments, and outsourced work. 

Telling the truth, however, is clearly not the intention of the administration. 

Instead, it hides the cracks of a failing economy, maintaining the narrative of a strong economic leadership while the Marcos administration continues to implement the flawed labor and economic policies of his predecessors at the expense of Filipino workers. 

Marcos is well on his way toward further selling out Filipino workers. His administration grovels for foreign investments and loans to finance its infrastructure splurge, adding to the already tremendous P18 trillion national debt. 

Such foreign loans have also long been weaponized by foreign powers to enforce policy changes to make the Philippines favorable to foreign businesses, such as lower labor costs. Very few policies remain to protect local producers and businesses; even now, Marcos’s legislative allies are peddling charter change to open key economic sectors to 100-percent foreign ownership.

If the Marcos administration genuinely wanted to empower the Filipino workforce, it must start by increasing wages and reversing policies such as contractualization and labor export. Then, he must divert economic efforts to develop sustainable local industries that could provide dignified employment to Filipinos without relying on outsourcing, labor export, or precarious arrangements. 

The Labor Force Survey claims that workforce improvement is necessary for the nation’s development. To do so, the administration must first confront and address the hard truths about the Filipino workforce, instead of perpetuating illusions. 

Lest Marcos is reminded that the Filipino people’s collective power could topple tyrants and shatter illusory truths. ●