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Bloomberg
The Philippines should gradually reopen the economy and allow businesses to operate at 50% capacity to save jobs, according to Teresita Sy-Coson who helps run an empire ranging from banking to retail under SM Investments Corp.
More than 1 million workers were affected by temporary closures, prompting 98% of almost 42,000 establishments to seek assistance for their employees, the Labor Department said in a statement on Sunday. About a quarter of those displaced are in the capital region, it said.
President Rodrigo Duterte has placed the main island of Luzon, home to 60 million people and which accounts for 70% of the economy, on lockdown from mid-March, shuttering thousands of businesses. Provinces outside Luzon have also imposed quarantine measures. Gross domestic product could shrink by as much as 1%, its first contraction in more than two decades, according to a government estimate.
“If all the industries can start operating 50%, including the transport, with all the medical precautions — like making test kits more available and disinfecting measures and sanitation safeguards — then we can gradually increase the employment†after the lockdown, Sy-Coson said in an e-mailed statement.