PNA file photo MANILA - Albay Rep. Joey Salceda on Monday called for a more rational system for designating alert levels for the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in the provinces, as the wrong alert level could "kill jobs". Salceda, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said the Covid-19 alert level system should be proportional to the actual risks so that people are not "unnecessarily constrained" from going about their business. He pointed out the seemingly arbitrary way that provinces are assigned to different alert levels, citing the case of Albay, where most municipalities have not recorded Covid-19 cases in weeks and where hospital utilization rates are low. "We are still on Alert Level 2, even when we are clearly doing much better than even NCR (National Capital Region) areas in Alert Level 1," he said in a statement. Since March 15, some 70 percent of the economy has already shifted to alert level 1, which means that more restrictions were
MANILA - While the unemployment rate declined, fewer Filipinos were able to work amid the Omicron surge in January 2022, the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) said. As reported by the Philippine Statistics Authority on Friday, the unemployment rate improved from 6.6 percent in December 2021 to 6.4 percent in January 2022, the lowest since the start of the pandemic. However, due to the Omicron surge in January, the labor force participation rate fell from 65.1 percent to 60.5 percent. Another reason for lower employment levels is the end of the holiday season which shed off seasonal jobs. Despite this, net employment remains at 0.5 million above the pre-pandemic level. The level of underemployment also slightly increased from 14.7 percent to 14.9 percent. "The Omicron surge caused a temporary decline in our employment levels. Now that we have contained the spread of the virus and shifted to alert level 1 in most parts of the country, we look forward to an improveme