MANILA (REUTERS) - The Philippines has launched a crackdown on employers who hire workers short-term and without adequate benefits, the labour minister said on Monday (Aug 1).

The pledge to end hiring schemes unfavourable to workers helped city mayor Rodrigo Duterte win the presidency by a landslide in May.

"Our regional offices are very busy making an inventory and inspecting the operations of many of these companies," Labour Secretary Silvestre Bello told Reuters.

Partial results of the inspection would be ready in two to three months, Bello said, without identifying the companies or business sectors under review.

"Anybody violating ... I will close you," Duterte told a media briefing on Monday.

The Labour Department last week said it wanted to cut the practice of workers being hired for five months or less, without security of tenure, monetary, non-monetary, and social protection benefits, by 50 per cent by the end of 2016.