IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/phs/dpaper/200404.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Reforming the Philippine Labor Market

Author

Listed:
  • Gerardo P. Sicat

    (School of Economics, University of the Philippines Diliman)

Abstract

Philippine labor market policies, in the presence of a high degree of excess labor supply, are highly regulated and they tend to be along standards of highly developed markets. The policies adopted by the government are more pro-employed labor than to promote the overall employment of the labor force. These policies made the country to miss the path of labor intensive development in industrial enterprises, a pattern typical of the early growth of East Asian economies. These policies strengthened a powerful labor bureaucracy in the government. Side effects of the regulations and the culture surrounding the disposition of labor management issues encouraged rent-seeking and other motivational distortions in the behavior of labor when employed. The welfare policies as developed have contributed to the distortion in labor skill formation, the tendency to provide an increase of emoluments without any link to productivity growth, and so on. The last part of the essay focuses on the areas of reform suggested by this state of affairs. The balance between welfare and employment creation needs to be continually brought in the forefront. In undertaking reforms, productivity change needs to be placed in the center stage of reforms. Finally, it is argued that the labor sector would find it in its interest to deal positively with the challenges of globalization. This means recognizing that labor market policies need to adjust to global competition. This further means that it emphasize the need to accept that economic liberalization would require encouraging the growth of investments from all sources – including foreign direct investments. Such a route will create jobs and improved welfare for the working man.

Suggested Citation

  • Gerardo P. Sicat, 2004. "Reforming the Philippine Labor Market," UP School of Economics Discussion Papers 200404, University of the Philippines School of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:phs:dpaper:200404
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.econ.upd.edu.ph/dp/index.php/dp/article/view/113/107
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael Hobday, 1995. "Innovation In East Asia," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 226.
    2. Gerardo P. Sicat, 2002. "Philippine Economic Nationalism," UP School of Economics Discussion Papers 200201, University of the Philippines School of Economics.
    3. Mike Hobday, 2001. "The Electronics Industries of the Asia–Pacific: Exploiting International Production Networks for Economic Development," Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, The Crawford School, The Australian National University, vol. 15(1), pages 13-29, May.
    4. Paul F. M. Krabbe & Eddy M. M. Adang & Peep F. M. Stalmeier & Bruce R. Schackman & John Brazier & Milton C. Weinstein, 2003. "Letter to the Editor," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 23(6), pages 542-543, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Deborah Kim Sy & Nobuhiro Hosoe, 2022. "Intended and Unintended Impacts of Minimum Wage Change: The Pivotal Role of Migration in the Philippines," GRIPS Discussion Papers 22-08, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies.
    2. Campos, Nauro F. & Nugent, Jeffrey B., 2012. "The Dynamics of the Regulation of Labor in Developing and Developed Countries since 1960," IZA Discussion Papers 6881, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Gerardo P. Sicat, 2004. "“Successes” and Adjustment in the Philippine Labor Market," UP School of Economics Discussion Papers 200403, University of the Philippines School of Economics.
    4. Sy, Deborah Kim & Hosoe, Nobuhiro, 2022. "Intended and Unintended Impacts of Minimum Wage Change: A Computable General Equilibrium Model Analysis with Cross-border Labor Mobility in the Philippines," Conference papers 333454, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    5. Sy, Deborah Kim & Hosoe, Nobuhiro, 2023. "Consequences of a minimum wage increase in a migrant-sending country," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 1057-1066.
    6. Son, Hyun, 2008. "Explaining Growth and Inequality in Factor Income: The Philippines Case," ADB Economics Working Paper Series 120, Asian Development Bank.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chia‐Wen Lee & Roger Hayter & David W. Edgington, 2010. "Large And Latecomer Firms: The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company And Taiwan'S Electronics Industry," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 101(2), pages 177-198, April.
    2. Hobday, Michael & Rush, Howard & Bessant, John, 2004. "Approaching the innovation frontier in Korea: the transition phase to leadership," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(10), pages 1433-1457, December.
    3. Yohanes Kadarusman, 2012. "Knowledge Acquisition: Lessons from Local and Global Interaction in the Indonesian Consumer Electronics Sector," Institutions and Economies (formerly known as International Journal of Institutions and Economies), Faculty of Economics and Administration, University of Malaya, vol. 4(2), pages 65-100, July.
    4. Wei ZHAO & Rigas ARVANITIS, 2008. "L’INeGAL DeVELOPPEMENT INDUSTRIEL DE LA CHINE : CAPACITeS D’INNOVATION ET COEXISTENCE DE DIFFeRENTS MODES D’APPRENTISSAGE TECHNOLOGIQUE," Region et Developpement, Region et Developpement, LEAD, Universite du Sud - Toulon Var, vol. 28, pages 61-85.
    5. Dowling, Malcolm & Ray, David, 2000. "The structure and composition of international trade in Asia:: historical trends and future prospects," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 301-318, December.
    6. Markusen, James R. & Venables, Anthony J., 1999. "Foreign direct investment as a catalyst for industrial development," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 335-356, February.
    7. Heather Smith, 1999. "The Failure of Korea Inc," Agenda - A Journal of Policy Analysis and Reform, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics, vol. 6(2), pages 153-166.
    8. Can Huang & Naubahar Sharif, 2016. "Global technology leadership: The case of China," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 43(1), pages 62-73.
    9. Francesco Quatraro & Marco Vivarelli, 2015. "Drivers of Entrepreneurship and Post-entry Performance of Newborn Firms in Developing Countries," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 30(2), pages 277-305.
    10. Rajah Rasiah & Yap Xiao Shan, 2016. "Institutional support, technological capabilities and domestic linkages in the semiconductor industry in Singapore," Asia Pacific Business Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(1), pages 180-192, January.
    11. Jahan Ara Peerally & John Cantwell, 2011. "The Impact Of Trade Policy Regimes On Firms' Learning For Innovation From Suppliers," International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 15(01), pages 29-68.
    12. Tirta Mursitama, 2006. "Creating relational rents: The effect of business groups on affiliated firms’ performance in Indonesia," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 537-557, December.
    13. Lee, Ting-Lin & von Tunzelmann, Nick, 2005. "A dynamic analytic approach to national innovation systems: The IC industry in Taiwan," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 425-440, May.
    14. Bryan K. Ritchie, 2004. "Politics and Economic Reform in Malaysia," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 2004-655, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    15. Fu-Lai Tony Yu, 2009. "Taiwan's Entrepreneurs and International Coordination: Evolution of Global Production Network in Electronics and IT Industries," Global Economic Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(1), pages 49-62.
    16. repec:ilo:ilowps:369852 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. J H Chen & T S Jan, 2005. "A system dynamics model of the semiconductor industry development in Taiwan," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 56(10), pages 1141-1150, October.
    18. Hye-Ran Hwang & Jae-Yong Choung, 2014. "The Co-evolution of Technology and Institutions in the Catch-up Process: The Case of the Semiconductor Industry in Korea and Taiwan," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(9), pages 1240-1260, September.
    19. Alireza Naghavi, 2007. "Strategic Intellectual Property Rights Policy and North-South Technology Transfer," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 143(1), pages 55-78, April.
    20. Cusmano, Lucia & Morrison, Andrea & Rabellotti, Roberta, 2010. "Catching up Trajectories in the Wine Sector: A Comparative Study of Chile, Italy, and South Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(11), pages 1588-1602, November.
    21. Keijiro Otsuka, 2020. "Strategy for Cluster-Based Industrial Development in Developing Countries," Discussion Papers 2019, Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:phs:dpaper:200404. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: RT Campos (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/seupdph.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.