MANILA (AFP)--Up to 300,000 people could lose their jobs in the Philippines over the next six months as the global financial crisis deepens, labor secretary Marianito Roque warned Wednesday.
Some 15,000 have been laid off over the past two months while 19,000 others had their work week cut to four days or less, he told reporters.
He said that a "worst-case scenario" would see the number of jobless rise to between 250,000 and 300,000 by the end of June.
He described the job cuts so far, which include more than 10,000 in the Calabarzon industrial belt south of Manila, as being within the "manageable level" in relation to a nationwide work force of about 37 million.
Unemployment in the Philippines currently stands at 6.8%.
The government is holding talks with employers' groups to ease the fallout from the global economic downturn, which has heavily hit the country's two top export earners electronics and garments, where most jobs have gone so far.
Manila has asked business groups to prepare measures to mitigate the impact on their workers and use job cuts only as a last resort, he added.
Job creation is tough in the Philippines, where some 27 million people live on a dollar a day or less and where one in three adults are unemployed or underemployed, according to official data.
Jennifer Manalili, head of the labor department's Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, said as a last resort Manila could export more of its work force.
There is an unmet demand for 389,000jobs abroad, including more than 100,000 in Qatar and 12,000 in Kuwait, Roque said.
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