The Foundation for Economic Freedom (FEF) will host its two-day 4th Paderanga-Varela Memorial Lecture entitled, “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs: Policy Reforms and Actions for the Post-Pandemic Period” online, on February 3 and 10, 2021.
This year’s lecture will tackle FEF’s policy reform proposals for the agriculture and labor sectors, following the impacts of COVID-19 on the country’s economy.
The COVID-19 pandemic has badly affected the Philippine economy. After 29 years, the country is officially in a recession with Q2 2020 GDP declining at 16.9%, and it ended in 2020 with the GDP contracting by 9.5%. The Trade Department has estimated that in June 2020, almost 26% of the businesses in the country have closed. Unemployment is also at all-time high at 17.7% in April 2020, accounting to 7.3 million unemployed Filipinos. With the economy opening up, these numbers have slowly gone down but are still painfully high – 6% or 90,000 businesses remain closed as of September 2020, and 3.8 million Filipinos unemployed in October 2020.
As early as mid-March 2020, FEF has started discussions on action plans and policy reforms on what the government can do in a post-pandemic scenario which it believes is necessary to maximize the response of the private sector in reviving business activity, increasing investments, and creating jobs.
FEF is a public advocacy organization dedicated to advancing market-friendly reforms, well-defined and secure property rights, consumer welfare, and good governance.
For more information about the event, visit https://www.fef.org.ph/projects/paderanga-varela-memorial-lecture-2/2021-pvml-jobs-jobs-jobs-policy-reforms-and-actions-for-the-post-pandemic-period/
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