NEWSFLASH

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44,000 LAID OFF BY FINANCIAL CRISIS

Manila, April 24, 1998 - Around 44,000 workers lost their jobs from January to March this year. The figure is triple the number of workers laid off in the same period last year, according to the Department of Labor.

More than half of those laid off are from Metro Manila.

The Bureau of Labor and Employment said 1,072 business establishments filed notices of closure or retrenchment in the first quarter of the year, triple the first-quarter '97 figure of 309.

Cited as reasons for retrenchment were financial loses, the peso's depreciation, the high cost of production, lack of market and lack of raw materials.

Workers int he manufacturing sector were the most hit, with 28,043 dismissals. A far second was the construction industry, with 4,215; third was the wholesale and retail trade sector with 3,248.

The labor department, in a statement, said the 1998 retrenchments were cushioned by new sources of employment, such as the 32,513 jobs generated by economic zones in the first quarter of 1998.

But the spokesman for the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines, Alexander Hilario Aguilar, dared the labor department to identify where the supposed new jobs are.

"The truth is clear. Workers are losing their jobs and their means of providing for their families," he said.

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