Outlook and Policy Options for Philippine Employment towards 2040

We reviewed the context and trends of Philippine labor and employment along with its challenges. The labor market in the Philippines is characterized by a large and growing workforce with varied skills, but there are also significant labor and employment issues together with the importance to address the effects of continuing global technological changes in production. These issues must be addressed by current and future Philippine government administrations in crafting policies that target vital strategic industries for sustainable transformation and quality job creation to fulfill its ambitions for the Filipino people in 2040. We then simulate the economic structure of the Philippines from 2024 to 2040 through a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, assuming growth targets are achieved with modest capital and technological (TFP) changes. Then we link with a microsimulation model at the bottom to simulate changes in the labor market. Analyzing the trends in terms of labor market outcomes it appears that the economy stimulated an increase in employment shares and presumably the share of value added overall. Both skilled and unskilled labor need to increase. On this note, along with the PDP 2023-2028, our pointed recommendation is to conduct multi sectoral employment planning summits from national to regional levels as mandated by the Trabaho Act or RA 11961 to formulate the national employment plan with short-term and long-term targets sector by sector.