THE NONOY Librado Development Foundation Inc (NLDFI), an NGO based in Davao City that focuses on labor issues, raises concern over the one-hour-per-week standard that the government uses to evaluate whether a person is employed or not. We are calling for an immediate review of the standard to make it more grounded to the realities facing employment in the country.
Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Undersecretary Carmela Torres cited the standard before the September 5 hearing of the Senate on her agency’s proposed budget for 2025. Undersecretary Torres also revealed that the standard is based on the definition set by the International Labour Organization (ILO), the United Nations tripartite agency on labor. Her claim seems to be supported by this content in the ILO’s website: https://www.ilo.org/resource/employment-1
We have every reason to believe that the low standard for employed persons is the reason behind the very high 96.9% employment rate and the very low 3.1% unemployment rate in the country. As of April 2023, data from the PSA, Region XI was reported to have one of the highest employment rates in the country at 96.7%, with only 3.3% unemployment and 8.7% underemployment.
This one-hour standard overstates the true level of employment and obscures the realities of the labor situation in the country. Furthermore, the one-hour-per-week criterion used by the DOLE ignores the quality of employment, since it focuses only on the quantity of work (one hour of work) and not its quality. The measure is unfair to the majority of the country’s workers and poor Filipinos, as it papers over the amount of overwork that they are subjected to. Many workers in Mindanao, for example, are in the agriculture sector, working beyond eight or even 10 hours a day.
What can one hour of work per week mean for the majority of workers and the poor in the country? Many, if not the majority, of the country’s workers, are under a “no work, no pay” arrangement, and one hour of work per week will only mean earning barya (sinsilyo in Visayan) or loose change. It will mean not being able to pay for transportation to and from work, let alone a family’s basic needs. The measure cannot accurately reflect a worker’s economic well-being.
The standard does not seem to match with the right to a just and favorable remuneration for a worker and his/her family, as well as the right to just and favorable conditions of work. These are labor and human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and require, in the Philippines at least, the availability of decent jobs for Filipinos.
Relying on this one-hour work criterion for employment is inadequate and can lead to misguided policy decisions. It can suggest that labor is stronger than it actually is, and reduces pressure to address significant issues such as job quality, wage adequacy, and labor force participation.
Beyond reviewing the standard and adjusting it to the country’s realities, we are calling on the government to take proactive measures to generate employment by improving industries and agriculture. We are also calling on the government to exert greater measures to protect workers’ right to eight hours of work a day and other related rights.
