Coronavirus: Tycoon urges reopening of Philippines economy as temporary closures hit 1 million jobs
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
The main Filipino island of Luzon has been in lockdown since mid-March.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Follow topic:
MANILA (BLOOMBERG) - The Philippines should gradually reopen the economy and allow businesses to operate at 50 per cent capacity to save jobs, according to Ms Teresita Sy-Coson, who helps run an empire ranging from banking to retail under SM Investments Corp.
More than one million workers were affected by temporary closures, prompting 98 per cent of almost 42,000 establishments to seek assistance for their employees, the Labour Department said in a statement on Sunday (April 12).
About a quarter of those displaced are in the capital region, it said.
President Rodrigo Duterte has placed the main island of Luzon, home to 60 million people and which accounts for 70 per cent of the economy, on lockdown since mid-March, shuttering thousands of businesses.
Provinces outside Luzon have also imposed quarantine measures. Gross domestic product could shrink by as much as 1 per cent, its first contraction in more than two decades, according to a government estimate.
"If all the industries can start operating 50 per cent, including transport, with all the medical precautions - like making test kits more available and disinfecting measures and sanitation safeguards - then we can gradually increase the employment" after the lockdown, Ms Sy-Coson said in an e-mailed statement on Saturday.
Labour Secretary Silvestre Bello asked big businesses on Sunday to continue paying their employees amid the lockdown.
The majority of affected workers were in manufacturing, hospitality, restaurants and tourism-related sectors.
A breakdown of those affected included 719,649 workers in 31,612 establishments that halted operations and 366,404 workers in 10,224 enterprises that had to go into flexible work arrangements.
Enabling establishments to reopen is important to help absorb Filipino workers returning from abroad, Ms Sy-Coson said.
More than 11,000 Filipinos working overseas have returned home since February, the Department of Foreign Affairs said in a Facebook post.
"Employment is also the key to the health of their families by having enough food for their own immunity, and the key to the health of our economy," she said.
