Looking for a job? Turn to the government.
During Thursday’s budget hearing at the House of Representatives, Zamboanga Sibugay Rep. Wilter Palma sought a clarification from Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman on how many plantilla or permanent government positions remain unfilled.
Pangandaman said only 91 percent of the 1.98 million regular government jobs are filled, with balance of 169,136 still vacant.
Pangandaman said that for this year, the budget for authorized salaries for the unfilled permanent jobs in government is P77.8 billion, or an average salary of around P460,000, which comes to a little over P38,000 a month.
On top of these authorized salaries, Pangandaman said, is P20 billion earmarked for other compensation of the unfilled posts. She didn’t detail what constitute other compensation.
“The reason why I am asking this is that we keep on saying jobs, jobs, jobs and we have 169,000 vacancies,” said Palma, noting that around 20,000 of these jobs are under the Department of Finance. “Why don’t we fill this up? What is the reason?” he asked.
Pangandaman said the budget department has asked the agencies to hire staff “but I guess they are also having a hard time getting employees for the position given the qualifications given by the Civil Service Commission.”
Congressman Palma said finding suitable applicants for the unfilled jobs should be easy if they just announce the availability of those positions in various social media platforms. “People need jobs. Can we do something with department secretaries so they will act double time to fill these up? Money is already allocated for those positions,” he said.
The latest data from the Philippine Statistics Office show a total 2.33 million Filipinos were jobless in June, or an unemployment rate of 4.5 percent. The June estimate was an increase of 133,000 jobless from the level in May but lower than the 2.99 million total in June last year.
It is unclear, however, whether these vacant plantilla positions would even be filled given the plan of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to right-size the government bureaucracy as well as government-owned and controlled corporations.
Pangandaman said the Budget Department is now awaiting the result of a study by the Governance Commission on Government-Owned and Controlled Corp., whose leadership has just been revamped, on right sizing that is due in October. She said the study will also impact salaries of those in government.
