The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines has warned of bigger unemployment of workers in the agri-food export business and manufacturing sectors following the government’s declaration of COVID-19 alert to Code Red level 1.
Mendoza said the TUCP is looking at cancellation of orders of our traditional agricultural products such as bananas, mangoes, pineapples, coconut and coconut water, and sugar, and marine products such as sea weed, sea cucumber, sea urchins, tuna, other fish, and shrimp including natural health and beauty products.
“Stringent quarantine protocols to minimize COVID19 outbreak crisis will also cause major delays in imported raw materials, key and spare parts products from China and other neighboring countries needed by local industries to complete its products,” Mendoza said.Meanwhile, a recruitment consultant expects a drop in the number of OFWs deployed, particularly in the Middle East and Asian regions, with the COVID-19 outbreak.
“Kuwait deployment has suffered a deployment ban earlier this year and was only lifted three weeks ago but due to the COVID 19 has banned entry of flights coming from the Philippines for a period of one week adding to the woes new hires and re-hires to enter the Kuwait job market,” he added.