Companies in ecozones hire more workers, PEZA says

MANILA, Philippines - Nearly 2000 companies operating inside Philippine economic zones have hired more employees last year, the government said. The employment rate in the zones even went up by 2.5 percent in 2008, the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) said in a statement. Also known as “locators," companies in PEZA zones have “adopted certain work hours," allowing them to keep their employees, PEZA Director General Lilia de Lima said. De Lima made this announcement after President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo awarded cash grants to poor families of Pasay City under the P10-billion Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) Wednesday afternoon at the PEZA Building along Roxas Boulevard in Pasay City. Some companies have cut their workweek while others have temporarily suspended their operations, keeping their workforce intact, de Lima said The temporary measure will enable companies to save on training costs since cutting jobs and hiring employees again entail expenses, de Lima said. More workers are expected to be employed since the PEZA has approved more than 560 companies last year. These companies have already started hiring new workers inside PEZA, the agency said in a statement. These companies are engaged in the production of medical instrumentation such as disposable syringes while those engaged in the information technology (IT) industry are continuously hiring workers and expanding operations north of Manila, the Visayas, Bicol and Mindanao. “Attention should be paid on new companies coming in that are beginning to hire new workers," de Lima said. Economic zones earned P443 billion in export revenues and generated 177,000 jobs last year. Although the closure of the Intel factory last month in Cavite cut 1,800 jobs, one thousand of those workers were already absorbed by its sister company Numonix. Numonix will absorb 600 workers laid off from Intel last year and will hire an additional 400 more, de Lima said. For 2009, De Lima earlier said that PEZA and the Board of Investments (BOI) have approved P7.965 billion worth of new investments, representing a 117 percent increase compared to the P3.66-billion figure in the same period last year. - GMANews.TV