Actual number could be in ‘thousands’
TACLOBAN CITY- At least 227 workers from this city have lost their jobs after the business establishments they were working either shut down or downsize their number of workers due to the coronavirus disease(COVID-19) pandemic.
However, this number could reach to ‘thousands’ as there were establishments which did not report on the retrenchment of their workers, Katherine Peliño of the Public Employment Service Office(PESO) of the city government said.
She also said that the 227 retrenched workers only covered from their July to August survey involving only 43 establishments across the city.
Peliño said that since August, their office stopped visiting around business establishments due to the rising COVID-19 of the city.
“While on record we have only 227 number of workers who lost their jobs during this time of pandemic, we can say the number could be higher, even in thousands as our survey only covered the July to August period,” she said.
She cited that based on their survey for those who were rendered unemployed during this time of pandemic in the different barangays of the city, 570 individuals were identified to have lost their jobs.
And only 12 barangays out of the city’s 138 responded on their survey. Also, the survey, which started last July 15, was temporarily suspended due to the rising number of COVID-19 cases of the city.
City Mayor Alfred Romualdez said that there could be ‘thousands’ of workers from the city who lost their jobs during the quarantine period as there were business establishments have stopped their operations or chose to continue to operate but at the same time, cut down the number of their workers as the local economy was severely hurt by the COVID-19 pandemic.
But Peliño said that their office tries to help these unemployed people through referral system saying there were still establishments despite of the current health problem which looked for workers.
“But those retrenched during this COVID-19 pandemic were given assurance by their employers that they would be rehired once everything return to normal,” she said.
(JOEY A. GABIETA)
